Witches of East Panem
by AyYouFiction
Summary: Katniss comes from a long line of witches. The problem is that Panem's had a long history of burning witches.
1. 1

_This is more "Practical Magic" type witches than "Harry Potter" witches._

_A quick warning. I did not have a beta for this story so please continue with that in mind._

_(HG and its characters don't belong to me. Just playing around with them.)_

* * *

Just beyond the fire, I sit on the grass that crunches under the weight of my palm, still brown since the warmth of spring hasn't reached us yet. My little sister, Prim, and my mother are standing at opposite sides of the fire we've built in the meadow. They both have their arms spread out high and wide to the open, inky sky, chanting their welcome to the new season of growth for our district, the easternmost district in Panem.

My mother and my sister are witches, from a long line of witches that rose from the days before Panem—the days of war and natural disasters—when medicines were far beyond the reach of most. It was during those days that people turned to the apothecaries for help. But also rising from those ashes were the men and women that held the beliefs and knowledge of nature itself. Both of these peoples were the pillars of society, guiding and helping their neighbors through the worst of times. It didn't take long for the two groups, the healers and the spiritualists, to merge into what we now call witches.

And then Panem rose from the ashes of what was left. Witches were ignored at first because with them the few doctors in the fledgling country could remain near the central city while the outer districts could be left in the care of the witches, but that peace didn't last long. Indifference turned to disapproval and disapproval gave way to resentment until my family's practices and traditions were banned in Panem. I wish I could say that's where it stopped, but it didn't. The resentment festered until it became an outright hatred. Banning our craft was no longer enough, but soon the people of the Capitol called for the lives of those practicing.

My ancestors and people like them were burned alive in public squares throughout the districts. Even the slightest hint of compassion for witches or witchcraft could get you a death sentence. Those days were called the Dark Days and during that time, many hid their practice or stopped practicing altogether.

This is why we are in the meadow at the edge of our district. To help hide their ritual, all houses in the Seam have lit their fireplaces so that the peacekeepers in town won't notice the smoke from the outside fire. The people in the Seam do what they can to protect my mother and sister because they're the only known witches left in District 12. Without them, they'd have nothing left but doctors who are far too expensive to be of any use.

My mother and sister cross their arms over their chests and bow their heads, signaling that the ritual is at its end, and I start to stand to join them. It's cold even for this time of year so I quickly hand out the blankets for them to cover themselves.

"Think we'll have good weather this year, little duck?" I ask Prim as she wraps her blanket tightly around her body.

My sister smiles at me, closing the blanket around any exposed skin. "I think so. The air was calm."

I'm already thinking about my paths for hunting this summer because her word is good enough for me. Since she could talk, our parents said that Prim was a natural witch, predicting droughts and storms days in advance. With our mother's instruction, her predictions have only become more accurate.

Our mother is already ahead of us, walking towards our home and probably lost in thoughts of preparing for the next ritual. I think it's a good thing because she and I aren't exactly on the best terms, not since my father died four winters ago. Although I know that some things in nature can't be changed, I still can't help but blame her for my father's death in the mines. If only she'd given him a protection spell, a charm, anything that would have saved him that day.

It didn't help that since his death, she's thought of nothing but the craft. If it wasn't for Prim's interest in it, perhaps their relationship would have been much more like ours.

"Why won't you join us, Katniss?" Prim asks me as though she'd read my mind, with her round, merchant blue eyes fixed on me. She knows my answer. It's the one I give her every ritual.

"I don't have that kind of magick in me, little duck," I tell her. After years of this argument, we both know what magick I do have, but it has nothing to do with healing and everything to do with nature. I hunt for our food, and I'm damned good at it. I'm so good that my father once told me that my aim was eerily dead on, that it had to be some kind of witchcraft.

My sister gives me a look, the same look she gives me every time, telling me that my answer isn't good enough. I know she wants me in the rituals because she hopes that it will strengthen my relationship with our mother; I just don't have the heart to tell her that it would take far more than rituals to fix that.

* * *

The hearth fire has long since died out through the night, and I'm sure my house is not much warmer than outside, so I shrug on my father's jacket before I grab my forage bag from a hook on the wall. I'm out the door, and the morning sun's lit the sky to a gentle shade of blue that I can't help but stare. It's beautiful and for some reason just looking at it makes me feel good about the day. By the time I look down again, I'm already in the meadow and can't remember the walk from my house.

I plod through the brittle, brown grasses because this time of year I don't have to watch my step in the meadow. Most of the herbs haven't come back from their winter sleep. I do notice that the trees and perennials have buds forming on their limbs, but the seeds that we'd spread in the fall are about a month away from sprouting. In about a little over a month's time, my mother and sister will be here kneeling hip-deep in lush grass, picking the first herbs to dry for their medicinal stores.

At the other end of the meadow is the fence that surrounds my district. It's nothing but rusted metal with pockets of broken links that create gaps for anyone to be able to slip through or under when there's no electricity flowing through it. Most of the time, though, I don't have to worry about that, but I listen to make sure that this isn't one of those rare times nonetheless. There's no sound at all, so I shimmy under it as I've done countless times before and head for the woods.

The birds sing their morning songs for me from the tree canopy as I walk all the way to the one room house deep in the woods where I agreed to meet Gale. He's already sitting outside of it with his game bag on the ground beside him and the rope for his snares in his hands.

His ears are attuned to the sounds around him, so he hears me coming even though I'm sure I haven't made a sound. "Hey, Catnip," he greets me, ending the current braid of rope to check the tension strength.

"Hey," I answer back as I take a seat on the ground beside him.

"Ritual go alright?" he asks as though I would know, so I give him the only answer I can: "No peacekeepers arrested us."

He smiles at that and nods, then I remember what Prim told me. "Prim thinks it's going to be good weather."

At that, Gale's eyebrows raise and his smile widens. "That's what I wanted to hear!" but as soon as he finishes the words, the smile fades, and he takes a deep breath having long since stopped his rope weaving. "I'm going to miss this." He doesn't say more, but then again, he doesn't have to. I know exactly what he means. This is his last year of school and soon after he'll turn eighteen. That means he can work, but the only work available for a Seam man would be in the mines, which also means that he won't have a lot of time to go hunting.

"You'll still have Sundays," I tell him, but he shakes his head and doesn't say anything. Deep down, I know what he's thinking: that it will be the same as my father and his father, that he'll be able to hunt on Sundays, but he'll be bone-weary for it. Twelve hour shifts, six days a week can take their toll as it is, but to use his only day off for hunting would leave him no time to recover.

To lighten the mood, I bump my shoulder to his. "I can hunt for both of our families," I say weakly, trying to make this seem less dire than it is, but it's not my strong suit and the way his forced smile continues to fade only proves it. The two of us bring in just enough meat for our two families. Without him, neither one of us can see how I'll be able to bring back that much alone.

"I'll have to teach Rory and Vick to hunt," he says. It was something he intended to do much earlier, but time had a way of sneaking past us. "I'd like to start a family of my own one day, but I can't do that if leaving them means they'll starve. Two hunters in the family will take care of that."

I nod because I have nothing else to say. I dread the day he decides to marry and have children because I know that I'll lose my hunting partner to some woman that I can't yet put a face to. What woman would want her husband traipsing around the woods with another woman, even a girl, while she's at home with a baby on her hip?

But the picture in my head doesn't sit well with me. There's something about it that makes me feel uneasy, and I look up and my eyes are immediately leveled with his. What I see in his eyes unsettles me even more, but it isn't until he starts to lean in towards me to bring his face closer to mine that I understand what bothers me. I now see what he really meant, that the faceless woman is me, at least in his mind, and the "one day" would be two years from now when I can legally marry.

My stomach drops to the ground because I don't want him to have these feelings for me. What I see in his eyes is hope, and all I can feel is resentment that he's ruining our easy, uncomplicated relationship with these feelings.

"Come on," I say to him, turning my head away before his lips can come too close to mine. "We're losing good hunting time." I collect my bow and arrows and head towards the thickest part of the woods, eager to put a little distance between the two of us, and I try not to think how disappointed I've made him.

It's not long before we call it a day for hunting. It's earlier than we usually stop, but there's a tension between us that's scaring off game and making it hard to concentrate. I feel his eyes on my back as we leave the woods and head for our district, and I can't turn to face him for fear that he'll want to talk about his feelings.

It turns out that I have nothing to worry about. He says nothing to me from the time we decide to stop hunting until we're at the fence and divvying up out catch. It's not much and easy to split, just the opossum and squirrel, and all I get from him is a curt "Sure" before he takes the opossum and heads for his home. I don't like this tension between us, but then I think to myself that I would rather not think about what he really wants from me either.

By the time I get back home, my mother is talking to Prim in the kitchen while pulling down one of the bundles of herbs that was hanging near the fireplace. They're discussing which herbal mixture is best for some ailment, and I continue through the house and to the bedroom I share with my little sister, not interested in the slightest.

My thoughts are on Gale and his feelings for me and how I don't want any of them. Those feelings mean marriage; they mean children, and I can't have children. I come from a long line of witches, and even though I'm not one myself, who's to say my children won't be? I would be condemning another generation to hiding or possible death. I already spend most of my time trying to figure out ways of keeping Prim safe; I don't have enough time to think about someone else.

I'm lost in my thoughts, mindlessly slipping out of my hunting clothes and quickly replacing them with my clothes for school. When I leave my room, I see several sachets of herbal mixtures on the table and Prim's bundled in her winter coat and scarf waiting for me.

Our mother says her goodbyes to us but returns quickly to her herbs, chanting whatever it is she chants over them. I've heard that chant before, but I've never listened when she explained to Prim what it was used for, what it means. I only think about this for a second before I reach for my game bag with the one squirrel, stuff the sachets into it, and leave the house after Prim.

On the road into town, my little sister's distracted by her thoughts as we walk, so much so that it takes me calling her three times before she hears me. "What's on your mind, little duck?" I ask, but she shakes her head and says, "Nothing," before stuffing her hands into her coat pockets. It's not that cold outside for this time of year, but Prim's so small that it's no wonder she needs to bundle her layers. As she remains quiet, I think of what I can sell to buy her a better coat for next winter.

At the town square, Prim meets with one of her friends and heads towards school while, with some extra time on my side, I carry the squirrel to make one trade with the baker. He's a fairly easy trade because he loves squirrel meat, so I rush there using the most direct route I know.

The town is fully awake as I knew it would be. The merchants get up early to prepare their storefronts, sweeping and cleaning windows, or arranging their best wares to display and entice. The baker's wife is cleaning the front window, perhaps cleaning the smudges that were left from the faces of Seam children pressed against it.

To avoid her, I slip to the back. Since I don't hear her shrill voice screaming at me to go away, I'm pretty sure the trees at the side of the bakery are enough to hide me from her view.

Even so, I stop short when I reach the back of the bakery to find two of the Mellark boys fighting each other under the apple tree, near the pig pen. They're locked in some heated battle, and that along with their strong, wide builds reminds me of bears fighting. But they aren't bears; they're blond merchant boys with their flushed pale skin, shirtless and exposed.

I find myself rooting for one in particular, hoping to see him win no matter how hard I try not to care what they are doing, and I feel a chill run through me. He's struggling to keep his balance against his brother's best efforts, but suddenly he twists here and there and in the end his brother is the one on the ground underneath him. He's smiling, now, and his face lights up the entire gloomy yard. "I won that time," he says before lifting himself up and offering a hand to his brother.

"Lucky move," the other mutters and I can't help but watch how the winner wipes the sweat along his shoulders and chest with his shirt. His chest expands and contracts with his breaths causing the muscles underneath to ripple. I'm mesmerized by them; I can't turn away from them until I hear my name from behind me.

"Katniss?" the baker calls for me with some confusion from the back door of the bakery, and then his focus darts to his two sons. "It's almost time for school. Get inside and get ready," he says to them before shifting his attention back on me. "Did you want something?"

The heat rushes up my neck and cheeks and ears until I feel like I'm burning from within. I'm even starting to sweat a little. In my embarrassment, I chance a look back and see the Mellark boys looking at me. One seems amused while the other seems utterly confused by my presence.

The baker's waiting for me to answer, his patience clearly wearing thin with a typically busy morning to get back to, but the heat that's spreading throughout my body causes my mouth to go dry as well as my voice to get lost somewhere between my throat and my chest. Pathetically, all I can do is hold up my game bag to him and he takes it from me to peek inside.

"Ah, a squirrel," he says to me after finding the squirrel among the sachets, and I nod because that's all I can do. He holds up a finger to tell me to wait a minute before he disappears into the bakery.

"Hey," one of the Mellark boys says while walking by me and into his house. We don't know each other very well, just in passing, but he's being polite. I respond with something that's more of a grunt than a "hey" and notice the other Mellark boy standing behind me.

"Hi, Katniss," he says, and at first I wonder how he knows my name, but then I remember that his father said it only minutes ago. I know this Mellark. He's not a friend; I can't even call him an acquaintance, but I know him. He's the one who saved my life when I was eleven, and that's a debt I can never repay.

To add to my embarrassment, my body heat only grows with each thump of my pulse which I feel in my throat. Perhaps that's what's taken my voice. It doesn't help that I don't notice him speaking to me because I'm too busy trying to figure out where I've seen that particular shade of blue, the color of his eyes, and then it hits me. It was the color of the morning sky that I couldn't help but stare at this morning. I try to shake the thought of what my mother had told me when I was younger: "We each know more than we think we do. Coincidence can sometimes mean something."

I don't know how long he's been calling me, but I finally hear him. "Katniss? Are you okay?"

No. I'm not okay. Something is definitely wrong with me, so I run even when I hear Mr. Mellark call out, "You forgot your bread."

"I'll get it after school," I call out but don't dare look back, hoping that they think I'm rushing to get to school rather than running away from whatever this is going on with me.

* * *

I spend most of my time in school mentally chastising myself for treating Gale the way I did and my strange behavior with the Mellark boy this morning, and when school ends, I dread having to go to the bakery for my bread and sachets. For a moment, I consider not claiming it, but that would only make me look guilty. Guilty of what, I have no idea. It's bad enough that I not only left my game bag but also the sachets inside it. I couldn't even give Madge her dried strawberries and the herbs for her mother. There's no way around it; I have to go back.

So I tell Prim to go home without me, and I turn towards the bakery. Mr. Mellark eyes me in the storefront window and removes his apron before grabbing what I think is my bread and heading to the back of the bakery to meet me. The door opens, and he's holding my game bag bundled in his arms and hands it over to me. I can feel the bread inside it along with the bulges of the sachets. I wasn't too worried about the herbs, few people understand my mother's color coded system and which is used for what.

I smile and thank him before I notice his smile falter and his brows crease as though gripped by a sudden thought before he recovers and gives me another warm smile. We nod our heads to each other as a mutual thanks, but before I can turn away, I hear a scream from the town center. Prim's scream.

* * *

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	2. 2

The sound of my little sister's screams stops me cold. Mr. Mellark and I turn our heads in the general direction and see several people rushing past the bakery storefront, towards the center of town. I follow, my grip on my game bag locked by my anxiety but otherwise forgotten as I push my way through the crowd. At the center of the people gathered, I find my sweet, gentle sister's arm in the tight grip of a peacekeeper.

It's not just any peacekeeper. I remember this one very well because he once tried to arrest me for witchcraft when I was eleven. Otho.

He's yanking my sister's arm, and it looks so thin and fragile with such a large hand wrapped around it.

"Witch!" one of the merchants yells from the crowd, but most of them stay silent because they are not that much different from the people in the Seam. Most of them can't afford Capitol doctors, so they rely on my mother and my sister just the same when it comes to patching up wounds and curing illnesses. More than that, witches are entwined in the very fabric of our district. Even after my mother left her home in town for a Seam man years ago, she may not have been welcome in town socially, but they still respect her for her skills and knowledge.

Those here with a hatred for witches aren't from here originally, having moved from the districts closest to the Capitol within the last generation or two and still clinging to their Capitol upbringing. They are the ones glaring and screaming at my sister, but no one will stand up to them, talk against them, because to do so would mean burning next to an accused witch. Panem's history books are filled with the names of people who died for that very reason.

"Prim!" I call out to her, and Otho turns to look at me with a half smile. "Seems I had the wrong Everdeen. It's your sister that's the witch!" he says to me, and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. All I can think is that they're going to burn Prim, and there's nothing I can do to stop them.

The peacekeepers who were assigned to patrol the district start to gather around Otho. One even dangles a plastic strap they use for binding wrists together, and Otho nods approvingly as they talk amongst themselves. I take a step forward, and then another, and I'm not sure what I will do when I get to them, but all I know is that I want to be by my sister's side, even if it means my death as well. I'm having trouble breathing, but I continue towards them when a strong wind sweeps through town and over my skin. It gives me a chill that causes me to stop walking because I'm shivering so badly.

Prim's eyes raise, bright blue and glistening from the tears that've formed, and catch me just as I consider lunging forward to grab his hand from her arm.

But I don't have time to do it because the crowd begins to parts to the side of me, and the head peacekeeper, Cray, steps through with two other peacekeepers behind him. He walks past where I'm standing, not giving me much thought, and straight to Otho who's smiling at him, pleased with his catch. I'm sure there's a reward for catching a witch, a genuine witch.

I can see on Othos face that his plan isn't going the way he thought. Cray doesn't look at all pleased as he takes in the scene of people around us along with the peacekeeper holding the scrawny arm of a little girl. It's even more evident when Cray's eyes land hard on him, and he slightly shrinks back.

"Someone told me you've caught a witch?"

Otho pulls Prim's arm up with one hand and waves a small bundle of corded herbs with the other. "This one here! Caught her red handed."

The man doesn't have time to finish his sentence before Cray snatches the bundle from him and studies it. The time it takes him to say anything leaves me feeling uncomfortable so I'm not surprised when wild excitement in Otho's eyes turns desperate, shifting between the herbs and Cray as though willing the man to say something.

"What are you showing me, here?" Cray finally speaks, and Otho's mouth hangs open, his jaw twitching to say something but nothing comes out. It seems his confidence has completely left him. Cray doesn't wait for him to speak and plucks a dried petal from the bundle to hold mere inches in front of the peacekeeper's face.

"Are you trying to tell me that a bundle of dried wildflowers from a little girl is witchcraft to you?"

Otho shifts from his left foot to his right, helplessly watching the other peacekeepers slowly wander away from him. He stutters out a response that isn't anywhere near coherent enough to understand. He tries again, but he doesn't have enough time because Cray is speaking to him, practically yelling at him. "Let the girl go, Otho. For years you've been seeing a witch around every corner. This isn't the Dark Days where we accuse little girls of witchcraft for sharing dried fucking wildflowers!"

"But…I…she," Otho stammers some more until Cray's eyes level with his. The two stand there staring at each other for what seems like eternity until Otho's eyes drop down to his shoes, and just like that, Prim's wrist is released and her arm drops to her side. Otho's standing beside her with his head down, fully accepting that he's lost his argument.

I take that opportunity to rush to my sister and before Cray can reconsider, pull at her arm to follow me away from the peacekeeper and to the Seam. We don't get but a few feet away before we hear Cray's voice calling, "Little girl!"

I'm frozen in place, too afraid that he's changed his mind, that for whatever reason he decided to side with Prim, it had changed that quickly. Prim is the first to turn around, and I gather the courage to turn with her. Cray's head tilts downward and his brows shoot up with that hard stare not very different than the one he gave Otho. It's a warning how close a call that was, as though he knows Prim really is a witch.

He then holds out the bundle of herbs…no, the flowers… for Prim to take. "Forgot your flowers, little girl," he says before handing them over to her. As soon as they drop in her hand, I can hear a sigh of relief, but I'm not sure if it was from her or me.

* * *

We walk back home, and I can't decide whether to hold her or scold her. My indecision leaves one answer: say nothing until we get home. Prim knows my thoughts. Every time she steals a glance my way but says nothing, I'm sure of it. Prim is the chatterbox in our family, so the silence is not her by nature.

Our mother is pulling down herbs that have been hanging in our kitchen by the time we step through the door of our home, and it isn't until I see her worried expression that I can't control the screaming thoughts in my head from pouring out of my mouth. "What were you thinking?" I yell as soon as I close our door behind me.

Prim's eyes are brimming with tears and that knocks me down few pegs in anger. I never want to hurt her, but all of the fear of what could have happened if Cray hadn't intervened leaves me shaken and rattled. This is why I make the deliveries. I risk my life so that Prim doesn't have to.

"I just wanted to help Emily," Prim manages to tell me and our mother through her hiccups as I watch her tears roll freely down her cheeks. "She's afraid for her father in the mines."

"Little duck," I begin to say, but I don't have the words. I understand how she wants to help her friend, especially a girl worried about her father dying in the mines, but how can I make her understand that when there's a decision between helping a friend and our own survival, there really is no competition? She has such a tender heart that I don't think I would ever have the right words for her to understand that hard truth. And so I do the only thing I can think of: I reach for Prim and pull her into the tightest hug I can without suffocating her.

The vision of my little sister burning alive makes he hold her tighter, but she doesn't fuss. Maybe she understands that much of my fears.

When I can finally let go, I tell her to tend to her goat, Lady, while I make some tea. It's a relief that she leaves without question because it's clear she knows it's a half-truth. As soon as the door closes behind her my mother asks me question after question, and as I answer and tell her what happened in the town center, I'm sure that look of terror on her face mirrors my own.

"Well, at least Cray got there before the accusation was made official," my mother says after blowing out a relieved puff of air.

"Why would Cray help Prim?"

My mother stares at me and chews fiercely at her lower lip. I know this look; I used to get it all of the time when I was younger. It's the look that tells me whatever it is she has to say is not meant for anyone outside of our family, that it's information acquired by a witch's duties. I nod slowly to let her know that it's clear to tell me. "Because he comes here for help like everyone else. He couldn't go to the doctor and have…that…on his record."

I'm not sure what he wouldn't want on his record, and I have no doubt that my expression tells her this loud and clear.

"I know you're aware of Cray's preference," she lets that last word linger for a moment before continuing, "for young girls."

I nod. Everyone knows how he takes advantage of the destitute girls in the Seam desperate for money or even a meal.

"Well, sometimes his activities can make for a very embarrassing doctor's visit."

She's trying to be delicate about it, but I have no idea what my mother is talking about. As if she's said too much, she closes her mouth until her lips are tightly pressed together and leaves the table to heat a kettle of water for tea, remembering and fulfilling the promise I'd made to Prim. I'm not sure exactly what Cray needs from my mother, but apparently it's embarrassing enough for him risk his life by hiding the existence of a found witch. That act alone could earn him a seat next to a burning witch, or a bullet to the head if he's lucky.

* * *

_Walking through the streets, I hold the cloth bag close to my body to keep it as dry from the rain as possible. I try not to look as nervous as I feel, but I have a bag filled with herb sachets, more than enough to get me arrested and burned as a witch. I'm not the witch; my mother is, but I am the one left to deliver the sachets to the people who need them._

_My father used to do it, but he died in a mining explosion almost four months ago. Since it happened, my mother's buried herself in her work, her every waking moment dedicated to creating concoctions for ailments or leading our district in ritual that she rarely has time to distribute her treatments. She has even less time to spend with her daughters. Although, Prim tends to spend more time with her because she's taken an interest in the craft._

_I tell myself that it doesn't matter because I have nothing to say to her. If we were to speak more than a few sentences, I know it will only end with an argument started by me blaming her for my father's death. How it's her fault because everyone knows how dangerous it is to be a miner, and yet she didn't think to give him a protection charm. Even as the cold rain soaks my clothes through, I have my growing anger to keep me warm as I plod through the sodden streets heading for the mayor's house._

_Madge is the one to open the door today, and I'm thankful. It's not that there's anything wrong with her father, Mayor Undersee, but I know Madge. I feel comfortable with Madge under the circumstances. I smile at her after she gives me a warm "Hello," and hand her the first sachet full of dried strawberries._

_She takes the sachet gratefully and presses her nose to it to take a deep whiff. "I can't believe you still have some this time of year," she tells me as I'm reaching out to give her the next sachet. I only see him at my side a moment before he grabs my arm. "Caught you!" Otho says and pulls me to him. I glance at Madge, and her eyes have gone wide and her body rigid._

_"Hey, Madge!" comes a casual voice from down the street. It's the youngest Mellark boy with his blond hair plastered to the sides of his face and his clothes soaking. "I owed you this!" he says while handing the mayor's daughter a wedge of bread filled with fruits and nuts and doesn't seem to notice that Otho's about to arrest me for witchcraft._

_Madge takes the bread absentmindedly, completely confused and not knowing what else to do. Otho ignores him to take the sachet from my hand and starts to open it up when the Mellark boy continues his conversation with Madge. "Hey, you buy the Everdeen herbs as well?" he asks and all eyes turn to him, even Otho's._

_"You buy herbs from this girl?" he asks the Mellark boy carefully, and he gets an enthusiastic nod as a reply. The Mellarks do buy herb sachets and other concoctions from time to time, but I couldn't figure out why he would admit to it until he adds, "We use a lot of the for herbed bread and can't have soups without them."_

_Otho studies the boy while the words slowly sink in. The smug smile of a man who thought he would get the reward and recognition for catching a witch slowly disappears and is replaced by a sour expression of a man who's been outwitted. There is no law against selling herbs for food. I also realize that I no longer have to be afraid when I deliver the sachet because I now have an excuse that's completely plausible. And I have the youngest Mellark boy to thank._

_Otho stalks away, muttering angrily to himself, and it's the first time I can form full, coherent thoughts. The first one is that I owe the Mellark boy a thanks, but I turn and he's already down the street. It doesn't help that I don't know his name and even if I did, my mouth and brain haven't learned how to work together again after what had just happened._

_Fortunately, Madge regains her wits before he's too far down the road. "Thanks, Peeta!"_

_He doesn't turn back, but he simply lifts his hand in the air to acknowledge her before disappearing around the corner. I can't help but stare down the road, even though it's very empty and Peeta Mellark is long gone._

_"Katniss?" Madge calls me but I still watch the street as though I expect the Mellark boy to come back._

"_Katniss_," she calls me again, but it sounds different this time. When she calls my name one more time while shaking my arm, it's not Madge's voice I hear but Prim's.

"Katniss? Are you okay?"

My eyes open to see Prim hovering over me. "You were having a dream. I couldn't tell if it was a nightmare or not."

"It's okay, little duck. I'm okay. Go back to sleep." And she does. Prim flops down beside me and curls her little body to mine. I hold her but can't go back to sleep. I haven't thought about that day when I was eleven in a long time, and Prim's run in with Otho made it all come back clearly.

The night sky is just starting to lighten when I finally slip back to sleep, but Otho isn't my last waking thought. Instead, it's the baker's youngest son, Peeta Mellark.

* * *

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	3. 3

_Although I tried to keep it to a minimum, the material contained in this chapter will be uncomfortable for some. Reader discretion is advised._

* * *

A few weeks since the ritual, and it's been as Prim predicted. The weather steadily warms, and the effects of spring are everywhere. I close my eyes and breathe deeply the heavy green scent of damp wood leaves and listen to the sounds around me with my bowstring taut and ready. I concentrate on the birds singing in the trees, the cries of hawks high above the wooded canopy, and scratching to the side and ahead of me. Gale called it my prayer just before…

Release. When I open my eyes, there's a squirrel nailed to a tree with my arrow through its eye, caught mid-scurry. It's been this way for me since my first lessons with my father, the timing and aim always felt, never calculated.

I tread across the spongy ground to my latest catch, pull the arrow out with one hand and hold the squirrel in the other. It's when I stuff this squirrel in my game bag that I take full notice of the three others already there along with two pigeons. For some reason, I've been hunting a lot of squirrels, and I try not to think about it very much, too afraid of where that line of thought will lead me.

Still, I call it a day and head back to my district to trade in town. All morning in the woods I think of Gale, and the entire walk back doesn't help. We used to do everything together which means everything reminds me of him. Even though I know he still hunts—I've seen Hazelle in her yard skinning and preserving the rabbit and mink pelts—we don't meet up to hunt together anymore. This leaves me with the feeling that he's avoiding me, choosing to hunt when he knows I'm not there. It hurts more than I care to admit, and I resent even more that he had to change our relationship with his feelings for me.

I didn't want them; I didn't ask for them, and now I've lost my friend because of them. I try not to blame him for it, but I can't help it. I want things between us to go back to the way they were, but I know that they can't now.

The Hob is my first stop because it's Sae who gets the pigeons. She eyes the squirrels when I take them out for a moment to sort through the contents of my bag and offers a good trade for them. It's better than I would get from the Mellarks, but for some reason I can't bring myself to sell them to her. We compromise on one squirrel instead of all four.

In town, Mr. and Mrs. Mellark are busy with customers while their eldest son stocks the shelves. Their second oldest takes an empty tray in the back, and I rush to the back door in the hopes that he'll be the one to answer it and not his mother. I try to avoid the woman because it's not a secret she doesn't like people from the Seam, and sometimes I get the feeling that she doesn't like me in particular.

As I run around the back, I have my eyes glued to Mrs. Mellark through the front window for as long as I can see her, but when I turn to look at what's in front of me it's too late. I don't see the youngest Mellark boy at the steps of his door, and we collide. He wobbles a bit but doesn't fall thanks to his sturdy frame. I don't do so well, falling hard with my game bag, and the papers he was carrying are floating to the ground around me. In my periphery, I see that they're not just papers but drawings. Very good drawings. For a moment, I'm tempted to take a closer look at one of them when I see a hand held out to help me up, his hand.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't see you coming."

I feel my body heating, especially my face, and I can't help but stare at his large, outstretched hand or the muscles corded along his forearm that disappear under a shirt hiding a strong, wide chest. No matter how hard I try to shoo away the image, I can't help but think of him weeks ago, wiping the sweat from his bare skin after wrestling in the yard with his brother.

It's been so long without me saying or doing something in response that he pulls his hand back and leans down to start gathering the drawings on the ground.

In that very moment, everything about him strikes me as a beautiful work of art from the way the sun seems to filter through the trees just to make his blond waves shine, to the way he's crouched over, collecting the drawing scattered around. I think these are his drawings, and they look so lifelike, especially one that catches my eye. It's a charcoal drawing of a dandelion just before it goes to seed.

"It's beautiful," I think to myself, but then I realize that I actually said it out loud when he suddenly stops picking up his pictures to look at me. His brows furrow, and his eyes dart from the picture to me, trying to figure something out. The answer to whatever he's looking for must be found in my expression because he smiles at me with a boyish twinkle in his eyes and a wavy lock of hair that dangles haphazardly between them. He is radiant, and it's too much that I feel my face burn and have to look away.

"Thanks. You can have it," he says, picking up the last picture on the ground for me to take, the rest of them are in a small stack tucked underneath his arm. He then hands me my bag, and the sight of it in front of me reminds me of my reason for being here and brings me back to my senses. With a nod of appreciation, I take it before lifting myself up from the ground.

"Thank you," I mutter and start up the steps to his back door when his hand catches me by the shoulder to get my attention. We're face to face, and he's saying something to me that doesn't really sink in because I'm too focused on the blue of his eyes, on the way his lips moves while he speaks, and the scent of cinnamon wafting from him so close. It's not until he turns and climbs the stairs that his words finally filter through my addled brain. "Wait here. I'll go get my dad or brother to trade with you."

I nod because it's all I can do even though it's pointless because he can't see me; he's already inside. I'm by myself with my game bag in one hand and the dandelion drawing in the other, and that's a good thing because with him gone, it seems easier for me to regain my wits. No sooner do I fold and stuff the paper in my pocket that the door opens and the middle Mellark boy greets me.

"Hello, Everdeen. How many today?"

"Three," I say while pulling them out by their tails. He looks at me with a side smirk while taking them from me. For a long time, he stands there appraising them.

"A lot of squirrels this year," he says after a whistle and makes me feel even more self-conscious about what seems to be my strange preoccupation with squirrels during hunts. It's when he adds, "We've had squirrel meat almost every night," that I cringe before my defensiveness kicks in.

"I can't help it if they're plentiful this year," I say without a hint of wavering in my voice, my shoulders are squared and my chin high. "If you don't want 'em, there are others that would be more than happy to—"

The Mellark boy holds up his free hand in surrender. "Not like that! Before you, we didn't have much meat for dinner."

This is a bit of new information for me. I've always thought that the Mellarks, like all merchant families, could afford necessities like meat and that they bought the squirrels because it was a treat for Mr. Mellark. I do know for a fact that he loves the taste, he'd said as much, but now I wonder if they trade with me for easier access to meat. Suddenly, I realize that his comment about having squirrel every night may not have been a criticism, and I regret my response.

"Would your family like other meats?" I ask, and the middle Mellark boy's grin comes back fully. "My dad will have to be the one to talk to you about that," he says then looks back over his shoulder, "but he's busy right now."

I nod, understanding fully that it has something to do with his mother. "Another time," I say, and he nods at me before holding a finger to tell me to wait a minute and disappearing behind the door. I pass the time away watching the pigs in the pen play in the mud created by the rain the night before. When the Mellark boy comes back to the door, I turn and am not prepared for it to be Peeta standing there with a loaf of bread and a small pouch of something else.

"We don't have anymore bread to trade so my dad wanted to know if you'd take these instead."

I open the pouch and there are several bite-sized cookies inside. It's not a practical trade, but it would make Prim happy, so I nod to accept them and the loaf, stuffing it into my game bag and the pouch into my pocket.

He smiles at me, and simple words like "thanks" and "goodbye" are completely lost to me. We stand there for so long that he presses his lips together tightly and looks away because it's become unbearably awkward, and gives up by turning to go inside. I'm not sure why I'm desperate to keep him here with me, but I am, and I blurt out the first thought that pops into my head.

"You were really good during the practice matches!"

He spins around and blinks at me, completely confused by where that came from. Honestly, I can't blame him because I'm just as confused. "Thanks," he says but it comes out more like a question. Instead of just leaving and putting an end to my humiliation, I continue, "I think you may actually beat your brother this time."

He smiles at me again, and if I wasn't sure of it before, I'm am right now that whenever Peeta Mellark smiles at me, I lose all common, rational sense. I can't even look him in the eye. To salvage what's left of my dignity, I wave my hand as a very simple goodbye before turning and practically running home.

* * *

When I get home, my mother and Prim are sitting at our kitchen table covered with herbs, the earliest growing plants of the season, sorting them for drying. I pull out the pouch of cookies from my pocket and place them in front of Prim, giving her a quick kiss on her forehead before taking the bread into the kitchen.

"Katniss, this is wonderful!" I hear my little sister say in the other room, and I smile to myself as I wash my hands. I don't have to see her to picture her gobbling them down, and it makes whatever doubts I had about that trade disappear. Those cookies were well worth the trade if they can make my little sister so happy.

It's when I dry my hands, slice off a piece of bread, and return to the living room that I see Prim's not eating the cookies but staring at a piece of paper with our mother behind her appraising it as well. Even from this distance and angle, I can see the charcoal.

"Who drew this?" my mother asks me because she knows full well that I could never draw that. My last bit of artwork was years ago of me, Prim, my mother and father as stick figures under an orange sun. "Whoever it is would be a great help for The Book," my mother adds. Of course. The Book. With my mother, it's always a matter of witchcraft.

It's Prim's enthusiastic nod that twists my stomach, more so when they wait for me to answer for so long that I realize they won't let this go. I'm not ready to discuss Peeta because of the effect he has on me, but it seems I have no other option when it comes to my family. Finally I mutter quickly, "Peeta Mellark," and my mother's eyes widen.

"The youngest one?"

I nod, trying to make it as casual a response as I can.

Prim and our mother share a look, and Prim nods her head so gently that I'm not sure she actually did it. The next thing I know, my mother crosses the room, pulls The Book, a book that's been in my mother's family for generations, off of the shelf and places the picture inside. I watch her close The Book and return it to the shelf, and I'm about to protest, annoyed that she hadn't even asked me if it was okay to take my drawing, the drawing Peeta gave me.

Except I can't because there's no rational reason why it bothers me so much. Did I intend to carry it around with me all of the time? Why would it mean so much to me? It seems every single thing about Peeta Mellark confuses me, makes me lose my senses, and I don't like it one bit.

* * *

It's late and everyone in my house is sleeping when the peacekeepers come. I always fear these nights because my first thought is that they are coming to burn us all. Not tonight. I'm the one to answer the door when the peacekeepers tell us that every able bodied person must go into town. I see beyond our doorstep that they're swarming throughout the Seam knocking on each door and demanding the same. This can only mean one thing, and so Prim, our mother, and I dress and file out of the house and into town with the rest of the Seam inhabitants and our peacekeeper escorts.

I see Gale far ahead of us in procession of Seam people spilling into town, and he stops across the crowd from us standing with his family around him and his little sister, Posy, in his arms. It's not the first time I've seen him since that day in the woods, there have been several times I've seen him the halls of school, but I can't help but stare, hoping that he will come over to me and be my friend again. He doesn't. He doesn't even look at me.

The large screen, a permanent fixture of the town square, comes to life with light and sound of a Justice building that's similar to ours with the night sky above and two peacekeepers holding a little girl between them on its steps. The girl can't be any older than Prim, and standing in front of them is a man with a microphone to his side, holding a paper and dabbing his brow with a handkerchief continuously.

The camera zooms out to show the town square full of people, and at the front of it is a woman and five children crying. The woman reaches out helplessly and screams out something in anguish, but the microphone doesn't pick up her voice for us to hear.

I don't know what she says, but I don't need to hear her to know what it all means. Whenever there's a special mandatory gathering, it usually means that someone has been convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death. It means that the girl has been proven a witch by a Panem court, usually an accusation by a person of note is all that's needed as proof, and will be burned to death. The girl's mother begs for her daughter's life, and I feel every sob and scream from the woman as my own.

"Rue Lory, you have been tried and found guilty of witchcraft," the man with the handkerchief, I can only guess is their district's mayor, reads from a prepared speech on the paper. His demeanor is sullen as though he's forced to say the words he really doesn't want to say. Only weeks ago, that could have been Prim by Otho's accusation, and with that thought I no longer see their mayor and Rue standing there on the screen but I see Mayor Undersee and Prim in front of our own Justice building instead. I feel the tears welling in my eyes and try to blink them back, but it only sets one free to fall down my cheek. Once the first falls, it's hard to stop the rest.

I'm lost in the thought, and the only thing to anchor me in reality is Prim's hand slipping in mine to remind me that she's still here with me. Even so, I have the compulsion to look up and to the side of me, and the hairs on my arms and neck raise before I see him. Otho stands behind some merchants, his eyes hard on Prim which leaves me with a stomach in knots.

Peacekeepers in the other district's square part the crowd by aiming their guns in the faces of the people and telling them to move. The people reluctantly do with increasingly resentful faces until there's a path cleared for the peacekeepers holding Rue to drag her down the Justice building's steps and through it.

The camera pans to track their march to the metal post in the center of their square. We have one just like it in the center of ours, but I never gave it any more thought than the occasional fear that I would be tied to it one day for trading my mother's herbal remedies and spells. Since Otho publicly accused Prim of witchcraft, I get a cold chill at the very sight of it, the very reason why I avoid the town square nowadays.

Rue's back is slammed against the post, and her arms are tied around the post behind her. Even faced with her own death, she doesn't cry and her face is unreadable. Even now, in her last moments, she has a resolve that is beyond her years, beyond anything I can understand. Even this way reminds me of Prim again, so fragile in some ways but so strong in others.

I cannot be more right about this when a peacekeeper taps something in his hand and the post ignites, because it's me who turns away, squeezing my eyes shut when the girl screams, not Prim. Prim's eyes are focused on the horror in front of us with a level of detachment that scares me until I realize that it's a different kind of detachment. She's having a vision.

A disturbance on the screen other than the atrocity we're forced to witness catches my attention. As big as life, the crowd sectioned in two halves were already restless, but now they surge to become one again and peacekeepers in the center are suddenly overwhelmed. Even their guns are no match for the sheer number of people, and then we hear it: a cry from one of the people shouting "For Rue!"

The screen immediately goes black and my district is left in our dark town square dumbstruck and looking around for some confirmation of what we just saw. I see Gale again, and his eyes are wild and fiery before they land on me. They burn from something inside him that's been simmering for a long time.

It seems our entire district has these reactions. Some have a wild, angry intensity that seems ready to surge like the other district had done, while others are left with nothing but fear and a strange sense of the loss of a life, even one we've never known.

And in the crowd to my other side, I find a pair of blue eyes staring at me. It's Peeta. He seems as shaken up about everything that's happened on the screen as I am, but his eyes are full of concern. I don't have the time to wonder why he's staring at me with so much concern because the peacekeepers are already dispersing the crowd, ordering us to return to our homes immediately. We're not allowed to linger and discuss what happened.

One very young girl asks her father why did the people do what they were doing, and a peacekeeper raises his gun to the man's head. "No talking!"

The girl starts to cry at the sight of a gun to her father's head, but her father can't console her because his hands are in the air, waiting for whatever peacekeeper will do next: shoot him or let him go. "Take your girl home," he says, lowering his gun slightly so that it's barely aimed at the man's waist, "and no talking."

The man scoops his daughter into his arms and they disappear into the crowd heading for the Seam along with me, my sister, and my mother.

* * *

It wasn't the first witch burning I've seen, there's one at least once a year, but the death of Rue still haunts me days later. Usually, this time of year I'm preoccupied with the upcoming spring celebration, but I don't even think about it until my mother reminds me that we have to prepare for it.

I'm already wound tightly because sometimes when I think of that little girl's death, I see Prim in her place and the reminder of the celebration is what ultimately breaks me. I'm already anxious about the celebration, I am every year for the last three years, but now I worry that it will also lead to my entire family being arrested for witchcraft.

It's Prim that finds me in our bedroom with the threadbare curtains drawn and me crying in the dark room. I didn't want her to see me this way, which is why I didn't give in to the pain and worry until I was sure I had the house to myself. They were supposed to be visiting a patient, Prim and my mother, but she came home to get something she'd forgotten when she found me.

She sits on the edge of the bed and strokes the side of my face gently. "It's going to be great. You'll see," she tells me, believing that I'm only upset over the upcoming spring celebration. I can't explain to her that, yes, I dread it the way I always do this time of year, but it's the death of Rue that's hitting me hard because I fear for Prim more than ever. There's nothing left for me to do but continue to cry until my face feels swollen and hot. Prim leaves the room, and when she returns, she has a bowl of cool water in her hands and a cloth draped over her wrist. It's soothing when she soaks the cloth in the water, wrings it out and rests it on my forehead.

I let her continue to think that my sorrow is only because of the spring celebration. At least that way I wouldn't make my worries hers.

My anxiety over the spring celebration is something that she's very familiar with and grasps that I feel this way, even if she doesn't understand why I feel it. I know Prim, like other girls in our district, would love to be in my situation. I've seen her stare at me with envy like the girls in school around this time of year.

Its supposed to be an honor and great responsibility for the eldest, unmarried daughter of a witch during the celebration held in the meadow. When there were several families of witches in District Twelve, a daughter of one of the families would be chosen as the Spring Daughter, the embodiment of the spirit of spring, a girl transitioning into a woman. At least, this was how it was explained to me by my mother my first year.

In my experience, it just means more attention: boys want and girls envy. Worse for me, my family is the only known witch family left in our district, and because of that, I'm Spring Daughter every year without fail. I have been since I was thirteen and hated every moment of being dressed up and paraded around the meadow for all of District Twelve.

I guess I should count myself lucky because it isn't in front of the entire district, only those in the Seam. Since my mother chose a Seam man as her husband, the merchant folk haven't come to any of the ritual celebrations. From what my mother described of her own experience as the Spring Daughter, Town and Seam crowded together in the meadow until it was so packed that there was hardly any room to breathe let alone walk. I can't imagine a gathering that large.

Although, with the Seam alone, it's still a lot of attention that could possibly get my family killed. It's held under the pretense of a festival, but there's always the possibility of an overzealous peacekeeper like Otho sniffing around for the truth behind it.

Prim continues to stroke the edge of my hairline and hum a song that I sing to her when she has trouble sleeping. I'm still scared and dread the ceremony and what could happen because of it, but I'm so tired from crying that I drift to sleep all the same.

* * *

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	4. 4

Students of all ages funnel into the gymnasium to watch the final matches that will ultimately decide the district's wrestling champion. The first few matches aren't important by any means because we all know who the two for the final match will be: the same as last year, the two remaining Mellark brothers in school.

Madge saves the seat next to her for me, and as I climb the steps of the bleachers, I'm painfully aware of the eyes on me. Although most, thankfully, try not to stare, limiting themselves to several glances my way, Lissa Runer and her friends shamelessly watch my every step with their tight, jealous faces until I'm seated. There are other girls, Seam and Town, who have the same expression when they look at me. The boys around me are just as interested in what I'm doing, watching my every move carefully but with a hungry fixation, not much different than me when I hunt prey in the winter.

One of them is Gale who sits at the other end of the bleachers with some boys I've seen around the Seam but have never met. They're in some heated discussion that ends when Gale nods his head. No longer distracted, he looks over at me without having to search, as though he already knew exactly where I was to begin with. Caught looking, he turns his head and starts another conversation with his companions.

Even Delly Cartwright and her friends watch me, but they don't have the look of the other girls. Instead, Delly has the widest smile when she says something behind a carefully placed hand to the friend beside her, then her eyes dart across the gymnasium to where the younger students sit. It's Prim she's looking at who, in turn, is looking at me.

My sister tries to give me a comforting smile, but there is nothing comforting about this, about being the Spring Daughter. The only comfort that I have is that there are people here who have no interest in me, that aren't looking at me with jealousy or desire. There's Madge beside me, quiet as a mouse as usual, and the competitors on the floor below.

I try to take some comfort from their disinterest, but even that's not possible when out of the sea of blond hair, Peeta Mellark looks up to scan the audience and stops when he spots me. His expression doesn't change, and after a second or so, he shifts his attention back to his competition and begins to stretch.

Unlike the other boys that look at me, for some reason it doesn't bother me that he did. In fact, I feel my heart beating just a little bit faster and a tingle along the skin of my arms and down my spine with the slightest flutter in my stomach. Even my breathing is a little shallow. Although, perhaps not a little because Madge turns to me and asks, "Katniss, are you okay?"

I nod my head and give her a slight smile while consciously trying to take longer breaths before we both return our focus to the floor below.

Four boys are paired for their matches. Neither are Mellarks, but they are all blond nonetheless. There isn't a dark haired boy among them because there aren't any Seam boys competing this year. Most aren't strong enough to stand up to the well fed children of merchants families, but there's usually at least one plucky fighter to make it this far. One year that I can remember, there were even two.

The two boys that emerge the winners of their matches are each assigned their own Mellark to fight in the next match. Peeta's brother ends his match quickly, but Peeta doesn't have such luck. His opponent is struggling for all he's worth, desperate for a position higher than third place, but in the end, it's Peeta who wins. In the end, it's always Peeta.

The two Mellark boys take their places for the final match. Peeta's skin is flushed and covered in sweat while his brother seems as fresh as rain. The two circle each other for a few seconds before they collide, and neither one is unbalanced by the sheer force. They're both locked in a push-pull for dominance.

Peeta's struggling to stay upright thanks to his exhaustion; it's obvious in the way his face is scrunched and his muscles shake. He tries several times to get his brother down on the mat, but nothing works. It's when his brother takes a step forward and to the side, shifting his weight, that causes Peeta to lose what little stability he has left and fall to the mat. The instant he hits the floor, his brother has him pinned. I start to count as the referee kneels low to makes sure his shoulders are down and undoubtedly counts the seconds as well. Before I can count to two, Peeta's shoulder is off of the mat and he manages to free himself from his brother with slumped shoulders and panting hard.

They collide again, and this time Peeta goes down with his brother pinning him for the second time. The referee drops low again and I begin the count. By the time I reach two, I can't breathe. The world around me slows until it's almost as though no one is moving but me. I'm panting, a hundred times faster than Peeta had been.

I'm not sure where it comes from, but there's a breeze that sweeps through the gym and over my skin causing me to shiver uncontrollably when the world speeds up to normal. At the same time, Peeta pushes his brother off of him with an almost explosive resurgence of energy just before the ref could call it with his whistle. This disorients the other Mellark long enough for Peeta to pin him for three seconds and claim the title of first place.

Madge, along with half of everyone else around us, is cheering and clapping which allows me to discretely blink my eyes and collect my thoughts. When I do, I have the strangest urge to look across the gymnasium only to find a pair of wide, blue eyes focused on me. Prim's chest is heaving and she mouths something I barely make out: "You?"

* * *

Prim says nothing to me during our walk home, and I prefer it that way. The idea of me having anything to do with Peeta Mellark's victory is absurd, but for some reason, I don't want to have the conversation to tell her so.

We arrive home, and don't say much more than to announce our arrival to our mother. It doesn't matter much because she leaves the house only a minute later with a small, brown bottle of something in her hand. I can trust her to be discrete, or rather, I hope I can enough that she won't get our family burned alive.

We're halfway through our homework when there's a knock at our door. Prim opens it to see none other than Delly standing there with her hair tied into a messy bun hidden under a hooded sweater. She did try but none of that could make her round apple cheeks and fine clothes and shoes blend into the Seam.

"Hello," she tries to say calmly but her voice cracks as her eyes dart from side to side.

"Come in," Prim tells her while taking her hand all before I can protest, as I'm sure my sister knows I would have.

The girl from town has her head bowed low, but then looks up shyly and says, "I'm sorry to bother you."

"No bother," Prim says immediately, also knowing that I wouldn't have had the same response. "What do you need?"

"It's almost…the time of year…and…"

I roll my eyes. Of course. Even sweet Delly Cartwright wants what all of the other girls want. With the festival comes the hope of spring love. And who wouldn't want a good spell to help things along? "Not me," I quietly answer my own question.

"I have just the thing," Prim smiles at her while patting the girl's hand, and the nervous girl relaxes immediately. That's one of Prim's many gifts. "This is what you do…" she begins, and I mouth the spell as I know it is written in the book.

_One flower around one stone_, I say to myself quietly as Prim tells Delly, "Take a flower from your garden or the meadow, and take a stone that lays in your path and wrap the flower around it."

_Whisper to it when I'm alone_  
"When there's no one around you, whisper to it…" Prim says.

_the true heart of my future love_  
"…the ideal traits you want your love to have…"

_Only that which I prize above_  
"…all that really sets him apart from anyone else." As Prim tells Delly to bury it in the garden or meadow, I mouth the rest of the words in the spell.

_all else, calling forth 'til we are one._  
_As I will it, so will it be done._

Delly smiles brightly before pulling Prim into a warm hug and then hands her a pouch. Prim looks inside and gives a smile to match Delly's. "It's wonderful! Thank you." Prim says but then asks, "Will we see you at the festival?"

This causes Delly's bright smile to falter. "Could I?" she asks nervously, unable to look Prim in the eye, now.

"Of course," Prim says as though there would be nothing to stop her, as though people from town weren't as unwelcome in the Seam as Seam people in town. "Besides," Prim adds enticingly, "you don't want to miss the ribbon game!"

The smile on Delly's face returns and then some. I wouldn't have thought it possible for Delly to look happier, but leave it to Prim to find a way. Delly nods enthusiastically and spins around to the door, but before she opens it to leave, she gives me a wave goodbye. For the second time, her smile falters when she notices the irritation that must be written across my face, but being Delly, she quickly recovers and leaves just as happy as she was after talking to Prim.

I roll my eyes at the door and look at my sister who is appraising me carefully. I don't like the way she's looking at me. It's the same way she looked at me during the walk home. I quickly take a seat at the table and get back to my school reading. If I'm going to be the object of her scrutiny, I might as well get my schoolwork done also. There's a particular section of my textbook that fascinates me, at least I hope I'm convincing enough for her to think so.

* * *

Prim twines what I hope is the last flower to the crown she fastens securely at the top of my head with its tendrils of green ribbon spiraling down my back. The contrast of the orange dandelion flowers and bright green stems against the brown of my hair and skin is striking, and I'm sure it's the effect she was hoping for. In past years, she decorated me with white daisies, but this year all she could tell me was that the dandelions called to her.

"My best work yet, Katniss," she says while taking a step back to assess her work before handing me the only mirror we own. Even I have to admit that my little sister is a wonder at this. My Seam brown hair doesn't look so ordinary. And the combination of herbs used to stain my eyelids a rich brown make my commonplace Seam grey eyes stand out. Even my lips are stained with berry juice that makes them look plumper.

There is nothing ordinary about the way I look, and this makes my stomach twist even more. This isn't me. The beautiful woman in the mirror isn't me, but that's what will be on display in the meadow for everyone to look at and wish for or wish to be.

The worst is yet to come when I turn to find Prim holding out the dress I'm to wear at the celebration, the one I've worn every year before. It's been worn by the Spring Daughters of my mother's family for generations, and I hate it with its lace bodice and ribboned waistline. My mother says that it was once white, which never stood a chance against time and coal dust.

I hold up my arms and let Prim slip the dress over my head. I say nothing while Prim flattens the ribbon against my lower ribs and ties it in the back or when she helps me slide my slippers on my feet. I still say nothing as I follow her out of the bedroom we share to see my mother standing there staring with glistening eyes and lips that aren't sure whether to smile or open up for bawling. The fingers of her hands are intertwined and held up to her lips, helping her hold it together enough to finally settle on a smile.

More than anything I wish I didn't have to do this, but the way my mother's looking at me, as though she's witnessing something spectacular, leaves me conflicted. I don't want this attention, but I have to admit to myself that some deeply buried part of me doesn't mind my mother's attention. Especially since, I think, it's the first time she's really seeing me and not the symbol of the ceremony.

We stand there for a long moment before Prim tugs gently on my sleeve and tips her head towards the door. By the time we make it to the meadow, it's packed with people from the Seam. No one from town comes anymore since my mother left for a Seam man, and Delly is no where in sight.

The crowd parts to create a path for us, leading to the swing that dangles from a large, old oak. The thing has to be the oldest tree in the district as big as its trunks are.

I have trouble breathing with so many eyes on me at once. Young and old, it doesn't matter. I'm the center of their attention until my mother arrives to officially mark the beginning of the festival. People mingle and dance and eat berries and the crackers my mother and sister baked from the pigweed seeds, all collected from the woods. I'm sure for many in the Seam, this is the first night in many months that they will go to sleep with full bellies.

By the time the sun hovers along the mountains in the west, my mother calls Prim and everyone stops whatever it is that they are doing because they know what it means: the ribbon game.

My mother immediately blindfolds my little sister while everyone watches without a sound. It never ceases to amaze me just how so many people can be so quiet and for so long. When it's clear that my little sister cannot see, my mother hands her the fistful of ribbons and sends her on her way as the people around us clap. The energy is so high that I can't help but clap along as well.

At first, Prim takes tentative steps forward, trying to adjust to the darkness, but then she becomes more and more secure in her footing with each ribbon she hands out.

Everyone continues to clap in time which sets the rhythm for Prim to do her work. She separates one ribbon from the bunch and holds it up high above her head before taking those tentative steps in yet another direction. It's uncanny how she can find them, weaving through bodies to hand out ribbons. I've heard people wonder if her blindfold didn't cover her vision completely, but my mother is the one who ties it, and I know for sure she would never cheat when she believes so much in Prim's ability.

Suddenly, Prim stops in front of Thom Richardson and holds out her hand with the dangling ribbon, expecting the person in front of her to take it. There's always a person in front of her because Prim never misses her mark in this game.

Thom takes the ribbon and studies the bright, golden silk with laced edges. No Seam girl could ever afford such a thing, and so he looks around completely confused before shoving it into his pocket with a shrug because there's no girl to come forward and claim the ribbon. This time, there will be no kiss for everyone to whoop and holler at.

Prim has already moved on to the next ribbon that's held high in the air as the clapping continues. It's an old tattered thing that can barely be called blue it's so faded. This one is handed to Rory Hawthorne, and somewhere in the crowd a girl squeals with delight before she rushes at him with such force that the two tumble down to the ground to the laughter of everyone else.

The ribbons are handed out one by one. This year, even Gale is handed a ribbon of soft pink silk. Again, this is in such fine quality and condition that I have to wonder how a Seam girl could afford it. Everyone thought it was funny the way he tried to step out of Prim's way to avoid being picked for it, but each time he sidestepped, she followed. No matter where he tried to go, Prim was there to find him with the fancy ribbon held out for him to take.

He didn't want it; I could see it clearly in his tight shoulders and hard scowl. He was hoping for my ribbon, but my ribbon's never been given and the way I feel about marriage and children and passing on the troubles of a witch family, I hope that it never will. Unfortunately, I don't have a say in whether it is added to the bundle—as Spring Daughter, it must be added—still, I've been safe so far.

It's my luck that the next ribbon Prim plucks from her bundle is mine as soon as Gales gives up and takes the pink one. The mottled light and dark green material waves in the air like a flag as Prim walks deep into the crowd that parts for her until three blond children are revealed, leaning against a tree with lightning damage near it's top: Madge, Delly, and…

Prim thrusts her hand forward right in front of Peeta Mellark, offering him the green ribbon. All I can hear is my breathing, and I realize it's because the clapping has stopped. No one says a word, no one moves as Peeta takes the ribbon from Prim with some hesitation, as though he were being forced to touch fire.

"There! That's the last one," Prim says while pulling off her blindfold, and immediately she notices the stunned faces around her. She turns back to what's in front of her and stops all movement; she must see the green ribbon in Peeta's hand now because she doesn't move for what seems like eternity before she turns back towards me with a look of confusion. "Katniss?"

At this point in the festival the previous years, there would have been a wave of disappointed groans from the ribbon owners left without a match, but this year there is no sound at all. The meadow is as silent as the graveyard. All anyone can do is stare, dumbfounded, including me.

I never wanted my ribbon to be given to anyone, and for three years it hasn't. I assumed it would always be that way, but when I see Prim's confusion, Peeta's look of helplessness, and the anger darkening Gale's gray eyes, I feel constricted by the ribbon tied at my ribcage and trapped in the crowd of people with their eyes on me. A swell of panic washes over me, and I look to my mother for some sort of help, some guidance in all of this, but as I should have known, she's arranging candles without a glance my way.

It's too much, and all I want is to put distance between me and the festival, so I turn, hitch up the bottom edges of my dress, and push my way through the people until I'm as far away from them as I can get.

* * *

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	5. 5

The only place I can think to find the solitude and peace I'm looking for is the old house deep in the woods. I sit near the ruins of what was once a stone fireplace and draw my knees up just a little as I take the crown off of my head. The green ribbons that spiral down, exactly like the one given to Peeta, taunt me.

I shouldn't have left the festival the way I did, but I couldn't stay. It wasn't as though I could remain silent and hide in obscurity like any other girl who didn't want to claim her ribbon. Everyone knew the owner was me; there was no doubt about that.

To be given the Spring Daughter's ribbon is an honor, to have a Spring Daughter refuse you is just as much of an insult, but since I'm the Spring Daughter it's not so clear cut. Even to the people from town there is still some distinction, some honor to be chosen—I'm almost sure of this by the hungry looks of the merchant sons when they look at me—but the prospect of a relationship with a Seam girl is another matter.

I can only hope that he sees it this way, that me publicly refusing to claim my ribbon from him is a blessing. I convince myself that by running away, I actually saved him from an awkward moment. To save face among the other merchant families, he would have had to deny the Spring Daughter. Everyone from the Seam would hate him, those from town would forgive and understand, and all of the increased tension and resentment between the two would have him in the middle.

A stray thought crosses my mind, and I dismiss it just as quickly because I don't want to think that I may have hurt his feelings in all of this. There's no way that Peeta Mellark would have any feelings for a Seam girl with charcoal gray eyes and dark brown hair to hurt.

There's some rustling outside of the house that pulls my thoughts away from Peeta, and a I look up to see Gale standing in the doorway. At first, he doesn't move but just looks at me. It's only now that I remember I'm still in my flowing Spring Daughter dress. I lay the crown beside me and draw my knees closer to rest the side of my face on them, staring at him.

"Hey, Catnip," he finally speaks, taking tentative steps as though I'm some skittish deer. I guess after my display at the festival, he's not far off. I feel the prickle at my eyes and struggle with the tears welling to keep them in place. I don't answer him but blink over and over to hold the moisture at bay. He doesn't say a word as he crosses to my side of the room and takes a seat next to me with a heavy sigh.

"Did they leave?" I manage to ask him, but my voice cracks, and I realize right then and there that I can't trust myself. I wanted to make it seem as though I were either asking about the three merchant kids or the festival as a whole, but what I really wanted to know was Peeta's reaction. With pursed lip, his eyes sweep around the room before sighing and closing his eyes.

It can't be more obvious that Gale sees right through me. "Yeah, he left."

We sit in silence for a long while after. It's not until I've given up the idea of any more conversations with my friend that he says, "You didn't claim the ribbon." I can hear the hope in his voice, even as he adds, "Mine wasn't claimed either."

"Gale…" I start to say, lifting my head to fully look at him, but before I can say anything more, his body is fully turned to me and one of his hands is on my knee where my head had rested a minute before. His other hand cups my face as he tries to trap my eyes to his.

"Prim's predictions aren't set in stone," he tells me, which is funny because for years this is the opposite of what he's always said. "We can choose our own destiny."

I lay my hands on his where they're placed, but he's quick and catches them, takes hold of them. I'm startled by the tight grip he has on me and the wild look in his eyes. "I'm serious, Catnip. We can take charge of our own lives. It's one of the reasons why I joined the rebellion.

Since the death of that little girl in District Eleven—I think her name was Rue—there's been rumors of a small rebellion in that district. I think we even witnessed the start of it during the poor girl's broadcasted death. The idea of the rebellion spreading to our district terrorizes me because it could mean the wrath of Panem crashing down on our heads. And for so many years, it's been witch families, families like mine, who've borne the brunt of Panem's wrath.

* * *

Prim stares at herself in the mirror that's hanging from a nail on the wall while she knots the top of her hair, tying a ribbon around it to secure it. My breath catches in my throat when I see it's color and design.

It's not my intention to be so rough when I snatch it from her hair to get a better look. "Why do you have this?"

Prim looks at me with a fire in her eyes that I've never seen before. She narrows them before snatching the ribbon from me and turning back to the mirror to restyle the knot I pulled out of shape.

"It's mine. Why shouldn't I have it?"

I'm still not thinking clearly and grab my little sister by the arm, spinning her to face me. It's not until her eyes drop down to where I'm holding her that I see how tight my grip is. I release her, but I hold out my hand with the expectation that she hand me that ribbon. Reluctantly she does, and I take a closer look. There's no denying that this is the gold, lacy ribbon that was given to Thom. I look at my sister again and can feel my brows furrow deep and my chest heave for every breath.

Prim's not sure what to make of my behavior, but then her eyes widen in horror. "It was Delly Cartwright's payment to me for the love spell," she says quickly. "I didn't steal it. I swear!"

How could Thom get her ribbon? He's six years older than my sister. I search Prim for any sign that would force me to put an arrow in Gale's friend, but in her eyes, I see nothing hidden from me.

My body relaxes slightly, allowing her to relax a little as well. "Give me the rest of what you have," I tell her as I hold out my hand again. She goes into our room and returns with a spool of the expensive ribbon.

"We'll save it for a special occasion," I say. She gives me a questioning look before accepting that that is the way it's going to be and turning back to the mirror. I don't dare move until she's out the door to meet with her friends.

I hold the ribbon in my hand and try to remember all of the lore my mother's told us over the years about the ribbon game. One by one I recall bits and pieces. How it chooses a perfect match, something my mother called soulmates. It's not always immediate; my mother said it could take years, but it is fairly accurate with Prim's magick.

It could take years, I remind myself before stuffing the spool and cut ribbon into my game bag and heading out to the woods. I'm walking quickly, desperate to hide the ribbon from everyone, including Prim, I can't help but think of Peeta and remember the glimpse I got of him holding my ribbon before I ran away.

_It chooses a perfect match._

I don't stop walking until I'm at the house in the woods where I place the ribbon on what's left of the mantle over the dilapidated fireplace. It's that moment, while looking at the ribbon, that I think of Gale's words, that I can choose my own destiny. When I leave the house to hunt, I choose not to hunt any squirrels, even though they seem to be everywhere I point my arrow.

* * *

I'm successful avoiding squirrels, and am actually lucky that I caught a goose in mid flight. A goose would bring a decent price from Rooba, the butcher. I also have a pigeon, and a raccoon that tried to steal a hare from one of Gale's snares. I should remind him to thank me next time I see him.

The thought brings a smile to my face because we've been speaking again. It's a small step, but it's a step closer to getting my best friend back.

I'm in town first because I don't dare take my goose into the Hob. Negotiations can become aggressive when there's rich fat and succulent meat involved, and that's all I need is a stolen or torn bird to show for my efforts.

I'm on my way to the butcher's when I hear my name called a few shops down. It's Mr. Mellark standing on the porch of his bakery calling for me. When I look up at him, he waves his hand, telling me to come over. My first thought is to keep walking, to ignore him and make my way past until I'm safely inside the butcher's shop, but I can't. Mr. Mellark has been nothing but kind to me over the years, so I could never treat him that way.

I slowly make my way over and when I get close, he nudges his head to signal me to the back of the bakery. I pass by the storefront and see Mrs. Mellark standing there with her eyes fixed on me. They follow me until I'm completely out of sight of the storefront windows, and I can only hope she doesn't decide to rush to the back to make a scene.

Mr. Mellark's standing there without his wife, to my relief, and waits for me to get closer. The dread rises up my chest and up my throat as I try to think of legitimate reasons why I would insult his son the way I did at the Spring Festival.

"My son tells me," he begins and I feel my stomach twisting and I can only close me eyes and try not to vomit on the baker's back steps, "you're willing to part with more than squirrels."

My eyes snap open and I focus on the man in front of me. "Squirrels?"

"More than squirrels…" he corrects as though he's waiting for me to understand his words, giving me a funny look.

It takes a moment for it all to sink in, that he's not going to talk to me about the festival or that he may not even know about it. "Y-yes," I stutter out clumsily, still trying to switch my thoughts over. "Yes!" I say when I fully realize that this conversation is nothing more than a trade, something I can wrap my brain around.

"I have pigeon and raccoon. I also have a goose, but that's for Rooba."

Mr. Mellark rubs his chin in thought before glancing down the street. "Haven't heard, I take it?"

I guess my blank look must give him his answer because he doesn't wait much longer to finish. "Rooba's been sick with a cold. She can't work when she's sick, no one would want to buy contaminated meat at those prices so she usually doesn't even bother to open her shop."

When I look a couple of shops down to Rooba's storefront, my heart sinks. There is no open sign and there aren't any customers around. I look back at Mr. Mellark who gives me a gentle smile. "Don't worry about it, Katniss. I'll give you a fair trade for it."

I nod and take a step closer before I pull the goose slightly out of the bag, just enough for Mr. Mellark to appraise the bird's size and condition but out of sight from anyone else passing by. "How does three freshly baked wheat loaves and a fruit 'n nut bread sound to you?" he asks me and my jaw drops. The cost of those items is more than Rooba would have given me. I nod to accept the offer quickly before he can rethink it.

Discretely, he wraps a sheet of burlap around the bird before telling me he'll be right back and disappearing behind his back door. I wait patiently, staring off at the Mellark's apple tree that's practically covered in blossom. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, taking the time to appreciate the sweet scent when the door opens. I turn but don't expect to see the middle Mellark son standing there. He's as surprised to see me in front of him, but it only lasts for a few seconds before a casual grin slides across his face.

"So," he says, stretching out the word uncomfortably until I think he has nothing more to say until he does. "The big news in town is that my brother got a ribbon last night." I really wish he didn't have anything to say. Standing there mute, frozen and staring is all I'm capable of doing.

"Without an Everdeen in my corner," he says to me just as I see over his shoulder Peeta passing by. His brother's words and who he's talking to finally sink in and he freezes in his spot. "It's no surprise I didn't get first place in wrestl—" his brother continues but is abruptly cut off by the hard landing he makes to the floor thanks to Peeta pulling him by the back of his collar. All I see next is the pained smile Peeta gives me just before the door slams shut.

I can hear the two brothers arguing inside, and all I can think of is that I don't want to talk to any Mellark about ribbons and spring festivals, so I walk away. I can come back for the loaves before I head home.

I'm halfway to the Hob when I feel a hand on my shoulder and heavy breathing behind me. It's Peeta standing there out of breath leaning forward with one hand resting on his thigh and the other holding out a burlap sack. "Here…are…your…four…" he wheezes then finishes, "loaves."

He's flushed from running halfway across town to give me my bread, and I can't think of anything but how blue his eyes are, or how adorable it is the way strands of blond hair cling to his face from the perspiration just starting to bead. When I don't take the sack immediately, he shakes it again while taking deep breaths.

By the time I can do more than stand there staring, I take the sack. "I'm sorry for my brother," he says with heavy breaths after we do nothing but stand there looking at anything but each other.

"I'm sorry that you got my ribbon," I tell him as well. He raises his head and levels his eyes to mine, but I can't place the look on his face. I don't spend the time to try and figure it out, though. I'm already back on my way to the Hob.

* * *

Prim and I walk to school, but there's a different kind of energy in town this morning that leaves me feeling on edge. Merchants look around nervously, people aren't talking, and most from the Seam have their heads down. It's not until we're close to the school, passing by the peacekeepers' barracks, that I see what's caused this change.

The barracks has what I think is blood, at first, but then I recognize as red paint splattered all over it's walls. The only wall that isn't has a crude image of an encircled bird in flight instead. Not once in my life have I ever seen or heard of the barracks being vandalized like this, or at all. That alone leaves me scared. My only thought is one word: rebellion.

* * *

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	6. 6

Madge and I sit quietly together for lunch, but this is our way. What's unusual is how quiet it is around us because no one is speaking. Peacekeepers roam the cafeteria with guns at their sides. We're told that this is for our protection, but I'm not so sure about that. I get the feeling that they are here to listen and watch for signs of rebels.

They're scattered in the Hob, too, as well as in town and in the Seam. I've even heard rumors of them near the mines, wandering around the main offices and ground-level equipment with their watchful eyes and listening to everything we say.

The vandalism a couple of weeks ago has changed something between the people of the district and the peacekeepers. Not even friendly, outgoing Darius has been seen in the Hob since.

Otho hasn't been seen or heard from in over a week either, but I can't let myself feel any kind of joy or relief because there's something brewing, and I fear that it's trouble for my family.

I push those thoughts out of my mind and look up to see Madge staring at the other side of the cafeteria. It's a table full of boys sitting with Gale, the same boys he sat with in the gymnasium, and they all have there heads down and their eyes focused on their food. One looks up, his eyes shifting from one peacekeeper to the other before Gale whispers something that makes him lower his head again.

It's not just the group she's looking at. Following Madge's line of sight leads me directly to Gale, and I'm reminded of the ribbon he was given during the spring festival, the very expensive looking ribbon that practically no Seam girl could afford. That thought almost leads me to remember my sister's ribbon, but I don't allow it time to settle in my thoughts. I push it away in favor of the memory of the soft, pink ribbon that Gale didn't want to accept. Madge wears soft pink during official district celebrations.

Gale looks in our direction and Madge snaps her head forward, only to be caught by another pair of Seam gray eyes: mine. "Gale got your ribbon at the festival?" I ask, but it's not really a question. I'm not sure how I didn't see it before. She's always had him somewhere in her sights, but I always assumed it was because he was my friend.

For a long moment she doesn't say anything, but then she ignores me by looking at her food and sighs before offering me the untouched portion of her lunch. "I can't eat another bite. You want this?"

I wish I had the resolve and pride to say no, but it looks so delicious that I can't help myself and nod before I slide it over to my side. I'm halfway through the flaky pastry with its chunks of creamy cheese melted into the bun before Madge says with a lifted brow, "Peeta baked them this morning."

My mouth has gone completely dry, and I have trouble swallowing the mouthful that I have. She didn't ignore me, but Madge did make her point as clear as any words could have. Nothing more need be said with our unspoken agreement: so long as I don't mention Gale, she won't mention Peeta.

Now that that's settled, Madge leans forward to rest her head in her hand, balanced on the table by her elbow and her thin sweater opens just enough for me to catch the barest glint of gold. It's a pendant with a circle, and inside the circle is a golden bird in flight. It's the same symbol as the one I saw drawn in red paint on the walls of the barracks. My eyes widen before I can stop myself, and Madge follows my eyes. Quickly, she closes her sweater but doesn't say anything. Neither do I.

* * *

It's taken some time but I've finally scraped together enough money to pick up my new pair of boots. I step inside the shoemaker's shop to find Delly on her elbows with her chin in her hands, staring off through one of the store's windows with a goofy grin. When she happens to snap out of whatever world she was in and sees me, she perks immediately. "Katniss!" she squeals as though we are best friends and she hasn't seen me in such a long time. A long time ago being in class...yesterday.

"Hello, Delly," I say in my typical tone that I hope will let her know how much I don't want any conversation other than what's necessary to buy my shoes. When she turns to search the cubby shelves in back of her and says, "Ah, here we go," I think it actually worked.

She then adds, "Did you know that Fran Runer and Fos Cambeck are getting married?" and I know that it didn't. It's then that Delly continues to speak without so much as a breath from what I can tell. "They say they're going to ask your mother and sister to be there for the toasting. Isn't that wonderful? I told everyone how much fun and exciting the festival was with the food and the people and the ribbons."

At that, I close my eyes and take a breath. It's clear where the "news in town" came from. I know she meant no harm by it, which is why I try not to lose my temper but I'm quickly losing the battle as unkind words almost slip past my tongue. Fortunately for both of us, they don't make it because what Delly has to say next renders me mute.

"When I told everyone that the festival was a thrill a minute with lots of surprises, you know, like your…the ribbon given to Peeta, everyone was so intrigued. I mean, how much more exciting can it be when Peeta gets the ribbon of the Spring Daughter? He was so happy, and then you had to leave. It's a shame, but of course you had other responsibilities as the Spring Daughter; we all know that."

Leave it to Delly. Somehow, she managed to make it all seem as though everything was fine with what had happened. Peeta was happy to get my ribbon. I had to leave because of all the responsibilities of being the Spring Daughter, as if there were any other than sitting there and having everyone stare at you. I know my jaw is slack and hanging and my brows are raised in absolute awe of Delly's ability to spin an awful and embarrassing situation into something of a delightfully romantic event.

"I've said for years that all of their silly fears were unfounded, and now those silly fears just melted away," she flutters her fingers as she says it, but then something in back of me catches her eye. Suddenly, she's leaning over the counter to whisper to me. The change in her behavior has me curious enough to lean forward to hear what she has to say.

"By the way, Katniss, the spell worked. Better than I could have dreamed!" she manages to say before the door to the shop opens.

"Everdeen," I hear someone say behind me, and it's the last person I want to see. It's the middle Mellark son, "Long time, no see." The Mellark boy walks over to the counter, leans forward and gives Delly a kiss on her lips, without a care that I'm standing right next to him. He then caresses his finger over her cheek and gives her a soft, shy smile. Of all of the Mellark boys, this is not the one I associate with a shy smile.

Delly somehow pries herself from their little bubble of intimacy to clear her throat and look at me with bright pink cheeks and a shy smile of her own to tell me the price of my shoes. It's nowhere close to the amount her father told me. In fact, it's offensively low.

"I did the work. The price is for materials. You Everdeens are worth your weight in gold."

Delly doesn't give me time to argue or even thank her because she's hanging over the counter and pulling at her Mellark's shirt to bring him in for another kiss. This time, the kiss isn't as gentle or sweet. I look anywhere but in their direction, drop the money on the counter, and rush out of the shop with my boots tucked under one arm.

I spend the entire walk home thinking about Delly and the spell, and there's something that's gnawing at me. It's not quite a memory but more like a feeling, a half-thought of a forgotten memory. As soon as I'm home, I leave my new boots on the front porch and rush into the garden. Starting from my left, I walk around the fence until I'm at the seventh post and start to dig with my bare hands. It doesn't take long for me to find it: a stone no bigger than a robin's egg.

It's only now, seeing the stone in my hand, that I can remember perfectly the day I buried it. It was the evening my father came home from work with his hands cracked and bleeding. He told my mother that he couldn't find his gloves, but I know it was more likely that someone stole them.

Mining gear has always been expensive and so many times people from the Seam can't afford them. The desperate resort to stealing.

My mother filled a bowl with warm water and a few drops of a of a tincture I've seen her use with other miners that came to her for the very same reason before instructing my father to soak his rinsed hands into it. I winced when my father hissed as his raw wounds touched the water, but then I was able to relax when a smile spread across his face and he sighed in relief.

There was so much I wanted to tell my father about my day, but my mother told me to go to the garden to get herbs for dinner before Prim woke up from her nap. I took the cloth sling from the hook, and the last thing I saw before I left the house was my mother pulling his hands out of the bowl and patting them dry.

The herbs were plentiful enough that I didn't have to snip with shears but I could pinch off easily, so I was able to make quick work of it and was back to the house in under a minute. "Don't," I heard my mother say just as I was passing the front window. It was a strange tone for my mother to have with my father, so firm and commanding, so I peeked through the window. My mother held his hands while my father had such a pained look on his face that it broke my heart, even though I had no idea why. Neither said a word for so long, and then my mother raised my father's hand to her cheek which he only pulled away from her gently.

"My hands are too calloused and rough," he told her, but my mother shook her head and brought both of his hands to her lips to kiss. "Never too calloused, never too rough. To me, your hands are full of life, and full of love, always. Please don't keep them from me." My mother nuzzled her face into his hands, and I saw a tear roll down her cheek. Even at eight years old, I understood that their moment wasn't for me, so I turned and walked back to the garden.

I wasn't sure how much time to give them, but I was too preoccupied with thoughts of how much they loved each other and how happy their love made me feel. It was then that I realized that I wanted that kind of love.

My mother taught me to read much earlier than the other children in the district, using the Book as a reader to learn words. One of the spells during these lessons came to my mind right away.

I found the stone at my foot and a dandelion right next to it. I circled the garden fence and stopped at the seventh post because I was seven years old. It made so much sense to me at the time. I dug my hole and followed the directions, wrapping the flower stem around the stone while I sang the words.

One flower around one stone,  
Whisper when I'm alone.  
The true heart of my love  
Only what I prize above  
all else, all others shunned,  
calling forth until we are one.

I gave a good glance around to make sure there was no one around me and whispered to it, "I want the same as what mommy and daddy have. I want him to be strong, and I want him to be kind." I was ready to drop the stone into the hole but then brought it back to my lips to add, "And I want him to have hands of life and love."

I kissed the dandelion petals against the stone before I put both into the ground and covered it. Years, the death of my father, and the resentment of my mother made me forget all about it a long time ago.

The flower is gone now, decayed back into the earth, and I let the stone roll off my hand on onto the ground. It was a childish wish and I don't want it anymore. None of it. Love died years ago, and I wonder what my mother would say if someone were to ask her if it was worth it after giving up her family, her life as a merchant's daughter for a love that only lasted for a few years.

I turn my back on the garden and the stone the size of a robin's egg and take my boots inside the house. Now, if only I could stop thinking about Peeta so easily.

* * *

We're in the home above the fabric shop, the Cambeck home, for the toasting of Fran Runer and Fos Cambeck. It's modest by merchant standards and I don't feel so uncomfortable until I take a look around me and notice that I'm the only dark haired, gray eyed person in the room. My mother and sister fit right in with all of the blond heads and blue eyes of various shades standing around.

It's the one pair of blue eyes that I notice more than any other, that I can't help but to sneak a glance at many times. Peeta is standing across the room from me beside his two brothers, his parents, and Delly who is cuddled into the arms of her Mellark with glistening eyes. When he looks in my direction, at me, I turn away and focus my attention on my mother and sister. If I were to look and catch him starting, he would turn away just as quickly. It's a game that we are playing that isn't fun. All it does is leave my stomach twisted in knots and my hands sweaty, and I wish I could stop it—all I'd have to do is not look at him anymore—but I can't.

I'm looking at him again with my head forward and facing my mother and sister but my eyes to the side until my mother claps her hands and the sudden, loud sound makes me jump.

"Time to begin," my mother says, rounding her arms in an in-out motion to encourage everyone just a little bit closer. I step closer but try to stay on the outer edge of the semi-circle around my mother and sister, but I'm closer to Peeta, now, and I feel it more than see it. It's the same feeling I get when there's a strong lightning storm where all of my hairs stand on end and a strange tingle rips through my body. My chest feels constricted and I struggle just a little bit more for each breath even as Fran and Fos approach the semi-circle hand-in-hand.

The crowd parts to let them through until they are standing in front of my mother with Prim at the side to assist. There's a small end table covered with white linen between my mother and the couple. On top of it, there's a metal bowl filled with a lump of wood that has been burned down to small coals, all covered by a small, metal grate. My mother hands the couple a slice of bread and tells them to lay the bread onto the grate together.

They do as they're told while my mother chants a blessing in some long forgotten language called Latin as the bread warms and browns over the coals. Prim joins in, and even though they aren't singing, the sound of their voices together, yet words apart, have an enchanting, ethereal feel that makes me close my eyes and sway to its unusual rhythm. Every part of me pulses, growing stronger and quicker until it's more like a vibration.

I've heard this chant before, many times in Seam toastings, but for some reason it's different this time. I'm not listening to it; I feel it as though it's a part of me. I open my eyes, and I'm not looking straight ahead at my mother, Prim and the couple. I'm looking at Peeta Mellark who is looking at me, and I can see it all around him in jittery waves of deep red-orange. He feels the vibrations too.

The vibrations only get stronger, and all I want to do is to run to him and combine his vibrations with my own, that in doing so, all of the confusion and fears and pain that I've ever felt or will feel will fade away. It takes all of me, every little shred of reasonable thought left in me not to, until the chants end and the desire ebbs.

My mother splits the piece of toast in half, takes one of the halves and splits that in half as well to give one to Fran and one to Fos. They both eat their pieces and my mother says words to them that I should know because I've heard them countless times before, but at the moment I can barely remember my name. My mother gives the couple the other half of the piece of toast and they each eat from one end until their lips touch which is the same moment the entire room erupts into applause and whoops of joy.

Everyone closes in on the couple to give their congratulations, which leaves me and Peeta alone, staring at each other before I can shake my head clear and turn away to help Prim and our mother pack. With Prim's eyes on me, giving me that look, I don't dare look his way again.

* * *

For almost two weeks I try not to think of Fos and Fran's toasting, specifically what I felt that afternoon, but all other toastings afterward, in town and in the Seam, remind me of it, of him. In fact, every day that passes seems to bring with it a word or event to conjure Peeta into my mind for some reason or another.

In town is the obvious one. I swear people are speaking about him more than they ever did, but I try to rationalize how it's just that I'm noticing his name more. In the Seam, it isn't so unusual for someone to mention the bakery and remind me of him. But dandelion wine? When our neighbor asks for my mother's ferment, a brew she hasn't made in years, why does Peeta come to mind? In the woods, I swear the high-pitched bird tweets sound too much like his name. "Peeeet! uh!"

A stream of words I would never use around Prim pours out of my mouth for my entire walk home from the woods because I have a game bag full of squirrels.

I'm losing my mind, and I'm almost certain there's no cure for insanity in the Book.

I walk inside the house to find my mother sitting at the table with Prim standing behind her, patting her back comfortingly. My mother's upset about something, scared about something, and I haven't seen her like this in a very long time. That automatically makes me scared, and I have no idea what's going on.

My mother's hand unclenches from around a small, brown bottle that I've seen her carry out of the door many times before. Both my mother and sister look up at me at the same time and my mother says with a voice that cracks midway, "Cray's gone. There's a new head peacekeeper."

My first thought is to ask why that upsets her, but the meaning around it starts to sink in. Cray wasn't a decent human being, but we were safe with him, at least for the most part with the secret agreement my mother had with him. This new peacekeeper is unknown, and now so is our future.

* * *

_Reviews are how you pay a fanfic author. Feedback is worth it's weight in gold._


	7. 7

_This chapter earns it's M rating. There is a death of a small child, so it could be hard to take for some. Reader discretion is advised (big time)._

* * *

All of District Twelve gathers in the square for another broadcast burning. This time it's in the early afternoon and there are no confused expressions from having been woken late in the night. Everyone knows what we're about to watch; it's right there in the troubled eyes of those around us as they try not to look in the direction of me and my family.

Something about this event is different, though. They've had time to release all of the children from school, time enough for me and Prim to find our mother in the crowd, and we're still waiting for it to begin. Usually it doesn't take this long, but when the screen comes to life, the reason for the delay is clear as day.

Tied to posts are seven people ranging in ages, spanning three generations where the youngest is a girl who can't be more than five. Prim must see her too because I hear her whisper to herself, "They can't," but I have no doubt that they can and they will. Witches are burned no matter their age. It's Panem law.

"Barbara Fuller, Emilia Fuller, Agnes Mason, and Johanna Mason, you have been tried and found guilty of witchcraft," the man that must be their mayor says as he walks down the line of people tied to posts, eying each one by their name. There is no hesitation or remorse in his voice or in his eyes, and it's clear that he has no sympathy for witches. "Theodore Mason, Lucas Mason, and Aaron Fuller, you have been tried and found guilty of conspiracy with known witches."

To be charged with this crime could mean anything: assisting a witch in a spell, accepting a spell from a witch, or even just having anything positive to say about a known witch. By the look of them and their names, though, I feel the chilling reality that these are relatives of the accused witches, that it's an entire family being burned today.

I can't help but to stand a little bit closer to my sister as though that will protect her more, and I scan the crowd of faces to take note of those that seem appalled by what they're witnessing, potential allies of my family, and those that seem either disinterested or even approving of an entire family, a little girl killed.

The first pair of eyes that I see are Gale's. He and his family are near us and his eyes are on me with a look on his face that's as struck with fear as I feel. There are others from the Seam: Thom, Sae and her granddaughter are the ones that stick out in the crowd of dark hair and gray eyes to me. Thom has a hard set in his jaw, and Sae stares at the screen without a hint of emotion on her face. When her granddaughter starts to cry, she pulls her in for a tight hug, but there's still no trace of what she's feeling. I guess after having witnessed so many burnings over so many years as she has, eventually there's a numbness that can come with that time.

I don't want to ever be numb to it. Families like mine are burning, and it's happening more and more. My own could be next, and I would like to think that people would care if or when it happens.

My eyes continue through the crowd until the dark hair and gray eyes change to blond and blue eyed clusters of heads. Delly and her Mellark boyfriend are standing together; she's in his arms and her face is buried in his chest to hide the event from her view. There's only so much she can do—she must know this—because you can't hide from the sounds of someone dying this way. You can't even drown them out with fingers in your ears and humming; I've tried that before when I was younger than Prim. And this isn't just one or two people; it's the death of six adults and one very little girl.

The other Mellarks are there as well, and I see a pair of eyes in that particular shade of blue that draws me in more than just a casual glance. Peeta's staring at me but then looks away quickly. I can't blame him. If I'd claimed my ribbon and people were allowed to believe we were meant to be together, then his chances of being tied to a post along with me and my family would be almost guaranteed just by association.

I take a deep breath and continue through the crowd around me to see just outside of the tightly clustered bodies of our district, Otho. He's standing beside a man I assume is the new head peacekeeper from the symbols decorating his uniform. I've heard that his name is Thread.

Otho gives me a look that is almost friendly which doesn't comfort me but rather sends a chill down my spine. He then tilts his head to the side and back so that his lips are lined with Thread's ear and whispers something. Otho then juts his jaw in my family's direction and the unfamiliar man's eyes follow to find us, to find Prim. It's not hard to spot her and my mother among those from the Seam.

Thread's attention frightens me more than Otho's ever could. I thought we were in danger before with Cray, but now I know just how much my mother had done to keep us safe by providing Cray with her services. How my worries then were nothing compared to what they are now. I try to regain any shred of composure I have left as I pull Prim into my arms and position my body between her and the Thread's focus. I turn my full attention to the screen, ignoring the feeling of their eyes still on us.

On the screen there's a peacekeeper standing to the side of the posts with an almost bored look on his face as he taps something in his hand. I don't think we're meant to hear it, but one of the women tries to comfort the little girl next to her. "It's going to be okay, Emmie. It's going to be okay," It works enough that little Emmie's cries die down to whimpers, but not for long. It's seconds later that the flames ignite and spread down the row of posts. The seven scream and cry and beg for something or someone to help that we all of know will never come.

The young girl's voice is the loudest and Prim rushes to bury her face in my chest. All I can do is hold her as tightly as I can and close my eyes, trying not to think of the three posts waiting for us in the future. I try not to think of Prim crying like that little girl, like that girl from District Eleven. Emmie and Rue, I remind myself of their names because Panem kills little girls, no matter their age, and the least I can do is remember their names.

One of the seven, with the last bit of life left in her, suddenly screams out from the flames, "Mockingjay!"

It's a defiant battle cry. Johanna Mason's last breath is a battle cry for the rebellion.

* * *

After two weeks, the seven still haunt me. It's why I'm now crouched behind a wide trunk of a tree while Gale hides behind a thicket of bushes across from me. It's why our eyes are trained on a buck that's out in the clearing nearby. We need this buck. I need this buck with the trades it will bring, and with Rooba's help, a stash of coins to save for the winter.

After watching that entire family burn to death, I'm terrified that our family will be next. I wake at night with nightmares of watching my family burn. I'm always there tied to a post with them, feeling the heat of the flames and the sounds of their wails, but in my nightmares I don't have the mercy of dying. No. I live long enough to listen to my sweet baby sister scream for me to help her as the heat becomes unbearable, but it's the choking sounds of her last breaths that force me awake, sweating and crying.

I have to convince mother and sister to leave their craft alone, at least for a time, for my sanity. Besides, fewer and fewer people are willing to trade or buy their services since the burnings have become more frequent. Two weeks ago it was the seven family members in District Seven, and last week an old woman from District Four. They're finding witches in all of the districts, killing them, and anyone tied to them, without a second thought.

My hope is that if I can give my sister and mother proof that we can survive the next winter, perhaps they'll be willing to stop for one year. That will at least buy me one year to think of something else.

Gale takes aim and glances my way to see if I'm ready. I close my eyes and pull the bowstring taut as I breathe slowly. Each breath centers me in what I have to do. We both release at the same time, I can hear the arrows fly, the buck grunt and hit the ground, and when I open my eyes, the buck is laying there with one arrow through it's left flank and another just under its ear.

We both rush to retrieve it and begin to tie it to an pole we fashioned from a sturdy sapling. I'm so preoccupied with my own excitement, visions of how I can talk my mother and sister into being reasonable with good trades and some coin in my pocket, I don't think much of it when Gale's hand brushes against mine. I thought it was an accidental touch until I look up to find his eyes shining bright and focused on mine with the same hope I'd seen before when he tried to kiss me.

He's my friend, I remind myself. He can't help the way he feels. But I can't help that I don't feel the same either, so he should understand when I pull my hand away and put some distance between us to check the leg bindings from the other side of the deer.

Gale says nothing to me as we lug the heavy buck through the woods, or when we carefully slip it through the gape in the fence nearest town. It's dusk now, so it's easier for us to carry it without feeling exposed, that we might be easily caught by a peacekeeper. The truth of it is that the penalties for poaching aren't nearly as bad as witchcraft. What's a few lashes compared to burning to death?

We cut through the back yards until we reach Rooba's, and without a word Gale rounds the building to knock on her shop's door. She's closed, now, but she'll open her door for us.

By the time Gale comes back, Rooba's already at her back door and very interested in what's under the blanket. When she lifts it, there's a bright smile that spreads across her face and we're sent home with enough coin to sustain both of our families for a month and the promise of a haunch to split between us when she's done with the butchering.

I'm elated and eager to get home with my plan already half way in motion, but then I remember that I'm not walking back to the Seam alone. Gale is walking behind me with his head low and his hands in his pockets.

I stand in front of him, stopping him in his tracks and give him a long, stern look. "I thought when you didn't claim your ribbon, there was a chance you were going to give us a try," he says to me with a voice that's dripping with his disappointment.

Any other time, I would have lost my patience with him, but I can't ignore the hurt in his eyes. This time I don't have to remind myself that he's my friend because I remember it. I don't feel the same as he does, but I don't want him to hurt either. He's like family; he's like a brother to me. So I take his hands in mine and dip my head so that it's within his sight to coax him to look at me.

After some effort, he does, and my reward for him is the biggest, warmest smile I can give. "This has nothing to do with that ribbon," I tell him. "You and me, we're not like that."

"We could've been," he mutters to the side but I have to raise a skeptical eyebrow at that.

"Could we have? We're so much alike. Wouldn't that be like loving yourself too much?"

I wait for a reaction and am pleasantly surprised that he starts to laugh. He swings our joined hands with a smile I haven't seen on him for quite some time and then leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek. I smile back.

We walk home talking about everything from what we plan to do with our haunch of venison to the ever increasing number of burnings in Panem lately, that by the time I'm home, I wish we weren't so that I could talk to my friend just a little bit more. He kisses me on the cheek and whispers to take care because he knows my plan.

Inside, Prim and my mother are at the table discussing something, and I'm a little curious because they look very guilty with their sudden silence and their eyes that can't seem to look in my direction. Even so, I brushed my curiosity away because I have more important business to take care of.

"I want to make a deal with you two," I say because I have no desire to waste time when I could get right to the point. "I want you both to stop using magick. At least for a year. I can provide for us, see!" I say as I hold out my share of the money Rooba gave us.

Neither my mother nor Prim look surprised by my request. In fact, they glance at each other before they finally look directly at me and my mother takes in a deep breath.

"Katniss, you know that's not possible, and it's not about the money."

"It's a part of our family. We can't let it go that easily," Prim adds in.

I've lost the battle before it even began, but then there's a dangerous twinkle in my little sister's eyes that makes my stomach knot uncomfortably, especially when she says, "But…"

My mother eyes her with some curiosity, while I can only steel myself to prepare for what she has to say next. And it's good that I do because what she says is like a punch in the gut.

"We can't perform individual toastings anymore, so we decided to do one big toasting ceremony in the meadow disguised as a picnic. We will stop all magick for one year, if that's what you want, but you will have to participate in the toasting ceremony and the ritual after."

They know how I feel about magick. I understand that its a part of our family, but it hasn't been a part of my life since my father died. I want to yell and argue and tell them that it's wrong to even ask me to do such a thing when they know all of this, but I have to remember that I just asked them to give up something that is wholly our family. In essence, I just did that to them. So I hold back all of the emotions roiling inside me to keep my face as neutral as I can under the circumstances, nod my head with a mumbled "Agreed," and turn around to walk right back out of the door I not long ago came in from.

* * *

I trod through the grasses that surround the meadow and notice how they've grown as high as my hip in the last few weeks. Just beyond them where the clearing begins, I have to watch my footing with the herbs that have grown from the seeds my mother and sister scattered last fall. Most people don't take so much care when walking around here because they don't know that the simple, broad leafed plant will grow bushy and will be used ease a cough, or that the scraggly fern-like plant will help with fevers. Also, I think of my mother and sister on the ground, working very hard to harvest what's here.

In the center of the clearing the swing from the spring ceremony still hangs from the old oak and won't be taken down until the night of the last toasting ceremonies which, it seems, will be one big, collective ceremony. I usually resent seeing it this time of year, particularly this year as the constant reminder that my ribbon was handed out.

For some reason, tonight it doesn't bother me as much. Tonight, I reach for it, sitting on it to curl my fingers tightly around the ropes and take some comfort in the gentle glide forwards and backwards.

I'm lost. So lost that I grasp at anything to make me feel just a little less scared and angry and frustrated and helpless than I am right now. I even start to sing to myself because it reminds me of my father. Funny that, because he's also the reason why I stopped singing years ago.

_Deep in the meadow, under the willow_  
_A bed of grass, a soft green pillow_  
_Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes_  
_And when you awake, the sun will rise._

My hands continue to hold on to the ropes, and I rest my head on one as I feel it calming me. I close my eyes and let the words spill out in a way that feels unfamiliar from lack of use and yet familiar at the same time.

_Here it's safe, here it's warm_  
_Here the daisies guard you from harm_  
_Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true_  
_Here is the place where I love you—_

"Katniss?"

My head snaps up and I look in the direction of the voice but I already know who it is; I've heard that voice in my head so many times, in my dreams before the nightmares began.

"Peeta? What are you doing here?" I ask a little bit more gruffly than I would have preferred, but there's something odd about him being so far in the Seam for no reason. If there were a ceremony it would be different, but there's not and here he is with the gentle orange glow of sunset warming the color of his skin.

He doesn't say anything to me as he takes a few more steps closer, and I see his eyes shining with what can only be tears forming, but I'm not sure why. The next step he takes, he reaches into his pocket to pull out a ribbon. My ribbon.

My hands grasp the ropes tighter, and I feel a shiver from my toes work their way up my body. Although my mind urges me to leave the meadow and slip underneath the fence, to go running into the woods even at this time of day, my feet are rooted in the ground right along with the oak beside me. I don't want to talk about the ribbon, but it seems my body won't cooperate. I've already apologized for putting him in the awkward predicament, and it's not even my fault. Still, I find my voice enough to give it one more try. "I did say I'm sorry for the ribbon."

"Why?" he asks while still walking towards me with my green ribbon held tightly in his fist and a new look of determination in his eyes. The simple question barely registers in my head, because I'm too awestruck by how glorious and frightening he looks all at once. His blond hair absorbs the color of the last rays of an orange sun dipping below the tree line. I also see the start of an orange glow radiating from around him very much like the evening of Fos and Fran's toasting. I can't help but think of the glorious sun god from one of the bedtime stories my mother used to tell me when I was very little. I always imagined he would look like…

"Peeta…" His name tumbles out of my mouth but nothing follows. What more is there for me to say, and even if there were, the words would have vanished from my thoughts the moment he stops to kneel in front of me so that his eyes are level with mine.

"I have to do this before I lose what little courage I have," he says to me quickly, and then his lips are on mine. They're soft and warm and strong. They are comforting in that I can no longer think of my family's imminent peril, because my mind and body are completely focused on the feel of them against my own.

I feel them withdrawing from me, but I don't want them to go away, I don't want Peeta Mellark to stop kissing me, so I slip my hands over his shoulders, grabbing hold of him firmly so that he can't leave me. My actions cause a soft moan from him before I feel the tip of his tongue tentatively search for mine which I gladly offer without hesitation.

My arms are around his neck, his arms are around my waist and I feel his very warm body pressed to mine, but it's not enough. My eyes are closed, but I feel his kisses along the crook of my neck and I hear him say to me in breathless rasps, "I wanted you to claim your ribbon, Katniss. I wanted you to claim me."

The words don't make sense to me. He might as well have been speaking gibberish because the only sense I can process is how it feels like every point of contact between his body and mine ignites in a fire that could consume us if we want it to.

"Katniss?"

The small voice comes from somewhere deep in the high grasses just before the clearing. Prim's voice. We both pull apart, and I open my eyes to look around to see him still kneeling in the same position, but I'm no longer on the swing. Somehow, without realizing it, I've managed to sit myself on his lap and wrap my legs around his waist. By the beet red look on his face which can be seen even in the dimming light, I can tell that my position surprises him too.

He's looking at me, waiting for my reaction after the kiss, and with just the little bit of time granted me, my mind can think of things other than Peeta Mellark's lips and tongue, and body again. What he'd said earlier starts to sink in. He wished I'd claimed the ribbon, that I'd claimed him? A part of me is excited by the very idea even though I know it will only be trouble for him, but then I remember the spell.

_I want the same as what mommy and daddy have.  
_He is from town and I'm from the Seam.

_I want him to be strong, and I want him to be kind._  
There is no doubt Peeta Mellark is both.

_And I want him to have hands of life and love.  
_This makes me come to my senses, and I almost laugh at myself at the thought that Peeta could be the one from my spell years ago. I didn't know what "hands of love and life" even meant then and not exactly sure what it means now, but for some reason I think of the dandelion picture he drew and gave to me. It was so real, so full…of life. My thoughts are stuck in some kind of loop, and he must notice because he reaches out to cup my cheek in his hand. It's so warm against my skin and the heat spreads from there outward until I feel it all over. It's a feeling of a warm blanket wrapped around me. At his touch, I feel happy and…loved…of love.

The warmth leeches out of me as I realize the spell made him want me, and that very thought made it easier to tear myself from his hand and his body by lifting myself from his lap.

"You don't know what you really want," I tell him as I stand, as he looks up at me helplessly with confused and hurt eyes. "The ribbon doesn't matter. We choose our own destiny," I say, repeating the words Gale had said to me. "You're better off that way," I tell him before I turn and run to the grasses to catch Prim. With any luck, she's no where close enough to have seen me with Peeta in the clearing.

I find her at the edge of the grasses, very close to reaching the clearing. At first she's startled by my sudden appearance, but then she quickly recovers to say, "I'm sorry, Katniss. We can forget the agreement if it bothers you that much."

"No, Little Duck," I say to her as I lead her home, "I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe." I hope she doesn't noticed my quick glance back; I can't help myself.

* * *

_Feed a muse. Leave a review._


	8. 8

_Remember that this fic has an M rating, and this chapter's definitely pushing the upper boundaries of M._

* * *

I stand outside of the school building where I wait for Prim by the rusted iron gates. Her class will release soon, and I'm eager to get home so that I can go hunting. The added daylight for this time of year allows me to do that, and it's what I need to clear my head.

It's what I desperately need because as it is now, my head is filled with nothing but Peeta. I've caught myself daydreaming more than once at home and at school, remembering how glorious he looked against the setting sun. And even more than that I've caught myself mindlessly caressing my lips, remembering where his connected with mine.

This is hardly the time for me to become like the other girls I see, their heads full of boys and relationships and marriage, because I have more important responsibilities in my life. My family could be sentenced to death any day, and I have to figure out how to keep them safe until after the large toasting ceremony when I'll have a year without worrying about their safety to plan for the year after.

My thoughts swing wildly from Peeta to my family, but what distracts me from both is a glint of gold that flashes from underneath Madge's open sweater as she walks by. I don't have to see it fully to know what it is. And after the last word from a dying Johanna Mason, I now know exactly what bird is in her pendant, as well as the one painted on the barracks wall. It seems the mockingjay has become the symbol of the rebellion, and somehow Gale and his 'friends' have convinced poor Madge to join their insane cause.

I think about what trouble the rebellion will bring here to our district, and I think about the trouble my family could be in, the trouble Madge could get herself in. So it's without thinking that I grab her by the arm to stop her until we both stare in shock that I would violate her personal space this way. I'm the first to snap out of it. I stopped her, I might as well say what I have to say.

"Madge, why would you join them? You're going to get people killed. You're going to get yourself killed."

There's a flush that fills her face in splotches, and it's clear it's from anger when she wrenches her arm free from my grip. Her head tilts slightly to the side, and she studies me with narrowed eyes for a few seconds before she says anything. "You, of all people, should welcome a rebellion."

Me, of all people? The only thing the rebellion will do is cause trouble for my family. The wrath of Panem will descend on our district, and when it does, witches will be the first to be blamed for everything. It's the way it's always been, and I don't expect that will change.

I don't know what she means by this and my confusion seems to soften her demeanor and her voice considerably. "There's so much more to this than you think, Katniss. There's so much you don't understand," she says before shifting her bag of books and walking away, continuing down the road to her home. I have no idea what to say or do with the riddles she's left me because none of it makes any sense to me.

* * *

The preparations for the collective toasting in the meadow has my mother in all of her glory again. She hasn't had her nose buried so deep in the Book since before Cray was replaced. Prim is right there with her at the table as they discuss how to scale a ceremony that was only meant for a couple and close family and friends to several couples with their numerous family and friends.

It's my responsibility to get the word out discreetly, and I have, visiting each couple on my mother's list to tell them what to bring and generally what to expect. I carefully gloss over the fact that the details are still being decided. My mother was adamant that everyone had to feel secure that they were in well prepared hands if there was any hope of making the ceremony successful.

"Prim, why don't you harvest some sage from the meadow."

Prim nods her head and rushes out the door with a basket, and as soon as the door closes behind her, my mother's eyes land on me and don't budge. She's studying me, and it's making me uncomfortable.

"Peeta Mellark," is all she says, but it's enough to make my heart stop for a second or two and my skin to prickle into a sweat.

I meet her gaze and hope that I'm hiding the panic inside me well enough to fool her. If it were Prim's gaze on me, I know I wouldn't stand a chance. For what seems like eternity, we both say nothing until, ultimately, she's the one to break our stand-off. "Prim told me what happened."

My first reaction is that I'm mortified that my little sister saw me in the meadow, but I push that aside for the second thought: my mother knows about the kiss. I'm ready to argue that we were just kissing, that I'm sixteen, and many girls my age do so much more than their first kiss. I think of telling her that she has no right to take a sudden interest in my personal life, that I've spent these years without a father and practically without a mother because she's spent most of her time consumed with her spells and potions and the Book. It takes me almost a full minute to decide how I want to defend my time in the meadow with Peeta when my mother says, "I know you influenced the wrestling match."

The…wrestling…match? The words seem foreign to me at first because I was so focused on the kiss that I couldn't understand why my mother would be so interested in a wrestling match. Then I remember Peeta's match against his brother, the one that won him the district championship. I remember how something shifted in the air around me, that's the day Prim started to look at me funny. I had nothing to do with Peeta's victory, but even as I think it, I remember his brother's words to me: "Without an Everdeen in my corner, it's no wonder I didn't win first place…"

Even now, people still talk about Peeta's miraculous win over his brother, but when they talk about it, do they assume I had something to do with it? Do they think I helped him win his match with magick?

"I had nothing to do with what happened," I say with as much conviction as I can muster even though there's a twinge in my stomach that says otherwise. My mother only has one daughter with that kind of magick, something we've all come to accept over the years, and I don't want anyone to believe otherwise.

My mother straightens her back and gives me the look that speaks volumes with her lips pressed tightly together and her eyes hard on me. "These are dangerous times, Katniss."

If anyone knows this, it's me. Why is it everyone seems to think I don't grasp the weight of what could happen to me and my family? First Madge, now my mother.

"If the magick inside you is awakening, you have to learn to control it. Especially now."

"I don't want it!" I blurt out loudly like some petulant child, startling myself with my declaration because at once I've admitted that I do have that kind of magick inside me as well as refusing it so vehemently. There's no way I can meet my mother's eyes after my outburst, so I turn my head away.

It's only now that I realize Prim's been in the garden for a long time, much longer than it takes to collect sage leaves. That's when it hits me that the two of them planned this conversation, one that I wish were over so desperately that, for a moment, I consider telling my mother about the kiss in the hopes of changing the subject. Before I can say anything, my mother is the first to break the silence. "I know," she says sullenly, leaning back in her chair. "I shouldn't have let this go so long."

My eyes dart back to her, and I can't help but wonder what she means by this.

"I've allowed you to blame me and magick because that's what you needed after the death of your father," she says while picking at a scratch in the wooden table. It's her eyes that can't seem to look at me, now. "You needed someone to blame, but the time's come where I can't let you do that anymore. What's in you is stirring, Katniss. It always has been there whether you want it to be or not, but now, it's waking. You can't bottle it up anymore, and you're not equipped to control it as you are now."

My head's spinning from all that she's saying, but only a few words stick, bouncing in my mind over and over: _allowed you_?

Allowed me?

"What do you mean, 'allowed me?'"

My mother continues to pick at the scuff in the table as she swallows hard and takes a deep breath. She's preparing herself for something, for whatever it is she has to tell me, but the longer it takes her, the more my nerves fray.

"You blame me for not protecting your father, and because of me, you blame magick."

She's right. I did blame her, but did I blame magick as well? Have I been suppressing it inside me all of these years? I don't remember feeling it inside me when I was younger, when my father was alive. I don't remember noticing strange things happening around me or to me. What I do remember is the spell, the love spell. I remember being so comfortable with it, it was like breathing to me. The Book was my first reader, and in those years before my father's death, my nose was buried deep in it more than my mother's ever was.

Now that I think more about it, after my father's death I stopped reading it, losing all interest in magick altogether. I know she's right, and even though I've come face to face with the truth, I can't bring myself to forgive her even now after all of these years.

"I did give your father a talisman for protection, Katniss."

My eyes meet hers, and this time she holds her gaze steady. She wants to make sure there is no doubt that this is also the truth. My first thought is a question that seems written across my face because she immediately answers, "He lost it in the woods."

With that, I see in my minds eye a flash of a leather pouch that's mottled dark and brittle with wear. It always hung from my father's neck, tucked safely under his shirt, and smelled of leather, herbs, and him. At night, when he tucked me and Prim in bed, I remember curling in his lap and rolling the pouch between my fingers, feeling something inside that felt like a tiny stone as my eyelids drooped and I fell asleep.

"It took a month to craft, to gather what was needed and do the rituals, say the proper chants all at the proper times. But he lost it while hunting. And I didn't have time enough to make another."

I barely hear my mother's words or the ones that follow describing how she no longer had my father provide game in exchange for Cray's silence. How she had to use her knowledge to keep him quiet. By the time I started hunting on my own reliably, Cray no longer wanted game, preferring my mother's knowledgeable services instead. Still, all of her words don't sink in yet because I'm lost in the fog of my memories. There's only one thing my mother said that sticks with me most and leads to another memory, one when my father and I went into the woods to hunt. I tried to climb to the highest branch of a very old, sturdy tree for the best vantage point when I heard the limp creak and crack under my weight. I was so scared that I could barely move, and my father climbed up to help, to coax me down easy.

The thong of leather that held the pouch got caught on a branch and snapped, falling down to the thick layer of autumn leaves on the ground. We searched for it for almost an hour but never found it. My father forced a smile for me, kissed my forehead and wrapped his arm around me before telling me that it was nothing to worry about. I didn't think much about that leather pouch after that day except that I missed it at bedtime.

That's when I realize the hard truth. I was the reason why my father had no protection. "He died because of me." Even as I say the words, I feel them cracking in my throat; the tears are already rolling down my cheeks one after another. All of these years, his death was my fault and my mother allowed me to believe it was her.

Before my next wracking sob, I'm fully in my mother's arms and she's swaying soothingly. "No," she says in the voice I haven't heard from her in so long, so gentle and nurturing, that it makes me feel even worse, cry even more.

I'm a complete mess in her arms. I can't breathe through my nose anymore and my entire face feels hot and swollen as my entire body shakes uncontrollably with every hiccup and cough. When I can't take anymore, when I think I might die either from the pain of knowing I all but killed my father or just from crying so much, my mother releases me enough to take my face between her hands and demand that I look at her.

"It's not your fault! Life happens, and it will happen no matter what we do. All the magick in the world can't stop it."

What she's telling me is something similar to what I've read in the Book. A simple sentence that seems to be repeated many times throughout it as though it's the answer to everything: "Some things are meant to be."

My mother wraps her arms around me again and hums softly. I don't cry as much as I did, but the tears still flow.

* * *

The meadow starts to fill with people from town and the Seam just as the sun sets completely behind the trees in the far woods. It's easy to spot the couples among the crowd with their eyes always on forever on the other, their excited smiles, and arms wrapped around each other as they walk. Family members trail behind them with smiles of their own. Seeing everyone like this, I wonder how my district can be so divided when basically we aren't so different. If I were a more optimistic person, like Delly, seeing people like this might even give me hope that we could be united one day. But I'm not that kind of person.

Still, I comb my fingers through the loose curls down my back and tug at my sleeveless slip of a dress to remove stray wrinkles so that I can be as presentable as I can. It's my responsibility to guide the couples to their place by the fire in the front. I explain to their family and friends that they can fan out in back.

Prim doesn't say a word as she helps our mother set up the herb bundles and tends the coals in the fire we've made, but every so often I catch her smiling in my direction. I promised that I would join them for the private ritual afterward, and that's all she really wanted for so long.

Everything is set to begin. Each couple brought their small loaf of bread, and each couple has a small fire in front of them started by the coals of our larger fire. I see the darker shadows against the darkening sky, and I know it's smoke in the distance. The houses in the Seam have kept their word and lit their fireplaces for our protection which allows me to relax just a little.

My mother guides the couples through each step in this ceremony, and I feel their collective excitement in waves that wash over me. When my mother and sister begin their chant, I feel it resonate inside me. I see the old oak, the herbs and flowers growing in the meadow around us pulsing with life. There's a thrumming that starts from the ground and reverberates up through my feet, up my legs and spreads out throughout my body. I have to close my eyes because I have to remove at least one of my senses before they all overwhelm me completely.

The chants grow louder in my ears and the thrumming beats in time with it, creating a melody that make me want to cry. It makes me think of Peeta.

Suddenly, there's a disruption in the thrumming, a slight beat out of sync with the rest, and it's as irritating as nails on a chalkboard. What bothers me most about it is that it tears me away from my thought, from Peeta.

I open my eyes and look around me. Everyone's too preoccupied with the ceremony to notice, but there's someone behind the crowds of people, in the shadows. Most wouldn't recognize the figure in the low light, but I know that shape anywhere. Gale's sneaking past the ceremonial gathering and headed for the fence with a large sack slung over his shoulder. I'm not sure why he would choose this moment to go into the woods, and I make a mental note to ask him first thing in the morning. I don't want to think too much about him because the thought of Peeta haloed by the soft orange of sunset is a better thought to have, but before I can find that perfect peaceful state again, my mother and sister stop chanting and the couples kiss signally the end of the toasting.

The families celebrate, lingering in the meadow for some time. My mother waits patiently for them to leave, but it's me and Prim who can't calm ourselves. I'm more than a little nervous, never having participated in a ritual before, and Prim's practically vibrating with anticipation that I will join them this time.

We take our places around the fire, and my mother is the first to begin the words, the chants, while Prim helps me. I feel the heat of the fire expanding, my body absorbing it like a sponge and yet it doesn't burn me. I feel the tingle of it throughout my body and think how warm it is, and it reminds me of the warm orange of the sunset the night Peeta came to me.

Peeta. Magick. Energy. Fire. Warmth. Peeta. Magick. Energy. Fire. Warmth. In my mind I've begun my own chant, and it's heightened my awareness of everything around me more than before. I feel the oak and the herbs and the flowers resting for the night. I feel the night insects scurrying about. I feel the pulse of life everywhere and in everything.

It's only now that I hear silence beyond my own thoughts. My mother and sister have ended the ritual and are looking at me. Prim's beaming with a smile from ear to ear and my mother gives me a strange look before it disappears into something more neutral. I want to tell them what I'm feeling but there aren't any words for this. How do you describe feeling a connection with the Earth? How do you describe feeling this amount of life energy all at once?

My mother and sister pack everything to return home, but I tell them that I want to stay outside tonight. I don't want to go home, cooped up inside four walls, a roof, and a floor. I'm too afraid that if I go home, I won't be connected anymore, and I want this feeling to last as long as I can.

Prim isn't happy when she asks to stay with me and our mother doesn't allow it. All she tells my little sister is that, "Nature must run its course." Prim all but pouts when she kisses me on the cheek goodbye before turning and walking towards home. My mother kisses my forehead and gives me a look I can't quite place before following after her.

I'm alone in the meadow, and it's peaceful with the sounds of nature around me and the feel of nature within me. I sit on the swing that will be taken down first thing in the morning and smile to myself. I'm no longer hiding from it or suppressing it. My mother was right; there is magick inside me, and I welcome it, now. Accepting it means that I accept everything else with it. Yes, even…

I look up to see Peeta standing at the edge of the clearing. There's that orange glow surrounding him, and he looks as glorious as he did the other evening, even with with old shirt and ratty shorts and haggard look like he hasn't slept in days. In his eyes, it's clear that he's unsure of himself, and looks as though he's reconsidering being here at all and may leave at any minute.

Why is he unsure when, for the first time in my life, I'm not? I know why he's here. It's because I want him to be here. These developing feelings I have for him, I don't hide, I don't suppress, I don't hesitate. I rush to him and almost knock him back with my sheer force. My lips are on his, my arms are around his neck, and I'm where I want to be.

He tastes like honey, and my tongue savors each lick of his lips and every caress of his tongue. There's the faint scent of cinnamon from him. I smell it in his hair as we hold each other close, desperately trying to catch our breaths. I wonder if it's in his skin as well, so I decide to taste him, nibbling at his ear and down the sensitive area underneath. It's there as well, sweet and earthy and fanning the already blazing fire inside me.

The ground meets my back gently, and the connection I felt with the Earth is stronger. I feel its pulse of life as my own, and the urge to have Peeta back in my arms has become my all consuming thought. When I pull his body against mine again, my legs wrap around him so that he can't leave me again and my hands explore his bare chest as my tongue reacquaints itself his his.

If I were thinking clearly, I might have asked myself when had he lost his shirt, but at the moment I don't care. There's an energy around us that springs directly from the ground beneath us, hovers from the sky above us. I can't touch him enough. I can't connect with him enough, and I know he feels the same because his mouth is desperate against mine and his free hand roams my body frantically and I feel the tug down my hips and soft fabric rise up to my waist. He wiggles above me and my legs wrap around him to hold him close to me again. There's a soft moan from him, almost a whimper, and then I feel him push his hips flush against mine with a rattling exhale. My reaction is the opposite; I gasp and can't release that breath no matter how hard I try.

He continues to move against me slowly and kisses me tenderly, and I finally release my breath against his mouth. This is what we were so urgently working towards, but I no long have the surety that I did before, nor the urgency. There's something else that replaces them, a kind of hunger for something, a building of something to the unknown. All I know is that I want to see it to the end, but I can't because he stops moving after he grunts my name and collapses on top of me.

I blink and look up at the sky over his shoulder, quietly watching the stars twinkling above us. I no longer feel so connected to the world around me as I did before, but there's a calmness that settles over me, and I welcome it. I don't think about the imminent danger to my family, which is a respite for me after all of these years. I don't regret what's happened tonight because most girls in my district have done far more, much younger and at the slag heap no less. But then I start to wonder if he will regret it, this boy breathing heavily, resting on top of me. Will he come to regret this night when the spell wears off and he's left with his real feelings for me?

A tear works it's way clear from the corner of my eye and trickles down the side of my face as I think about how embarrassed he would be if his friends and family ever knew what happened between us this night. I try not to hold it back, but my nose starts to run and I sniff.

The sound makes him lift from me quickly and take a long look at my face. His finger reaches for the latest tear to pry itself from my eyes and then a look of panic washes over his features. "Do you regret this? Me?"

I can't find the words to tell him that it's not me but him I worry will regret. All I can do is shake my head and wipe at my eyes with the heel of my hands.

"Katniss?" he says my name gently, tugging at my elbow so that at least one of my eyes is free to look at him. Even with my right eye free, no longer hiding behind my hand, I can't bring myself to meet his blue eyes when I confess. "There was a spell, a love spell."

His body slides away from me, and I feel the loss of his warmth immediately. He's at my side, now, his head resting in his hand, balanced by his elbow, and he's looking at me as though he's trying to piece something together. "A love spell?" he repeats. "For me?"

I wipe at my eyes angrily because I'm tired of the tears. I wish I could control them better, but they roll freely no matter how hard I try to stop them. "When I was seven, I did a spell, a love spell. I didn't know it would be you at the time, but now, I'm afraid that when it fades and you realize what's real and what's not real, you'll regret."

The words pour out of me, and I'm as stunned as the look on his face. Slowly, a smile spreads across it until he's practically beaming. "Seven, huh?"

I nod and wipe at another tear. "Well, then. I think I have you beat, Katniss Everdeen."

I can feel my features contorting, my lips pressed tightly, my brows raised questioningly. Part of me fears he's making fun of me, making light of the spell or what we'd done this night, or both, but another part of me doesn't think he could be capable of it. I want to believe that part.

"The very first day of school, the very first day I saw you, I knew you were the girl for me," He kisses my tear-soaked cheek and adds, "My only wish then, and my only wish now is that one day you'll love me back." I think about what he'd just said to me and do the math. My spell was when I was seven, the summer _after_ our first year of school. So if what he's saying is true, he's loved me before the spell.

I look into his eyes and find the truth there. This is real for him, and it's real for me, and I claim his lips and draw him close to me because that hunger has returned. I want to see where this, whatever this is between us, takes us.

* * *

I walk alone down the dirt road that leads from the meadow to my house in the Seam. Peeta wanted to walk me home and hold my hand, ready for the entire district to know that we are together, now, but I wouldn't let him. After much convincing, and some loud words, he agreed that we would walk home alone, that we wouldn't tell everyone immediately. At the fork in the dirt road—one to town and one to my house—I saw the apprehension and worry on his face that I might be reconsidering any relationship between us. I assured him that that wasn't the case with a kiss goodbye that threatened to ignite the fire he manages to stoke into a blaze with the simplest of kisses and touches.

I'm confused by all that's happened tonight, but I'm content, happy even, as I walk home. It's when I get to my house and see a small light through the front window that my heart sinks into my stomach, and I trudge up the steps slowly.

Just as I knew she would be, my mother sits at the table by candlelight when I open the door. Her eyes are already on me, but there's no particular emotion I can identify in the expression on her face.

In front of her, there's the small, brown bottle I've seen her with before. She slides it forward on the table, closer to me, and says simply, "Three drops on the tongue."

* * *

_When you leave a review, a fanfic fairy gets her wings._


	9. 9

"Three drops on the tongue," she says to me, and it hits me hard in the gut to realize that my mother knows what I've done tonight and what the brown bottle is for. Worst of all, I remember her reason why Prim couldn't stay with me in the meadow tonight: "Nature must run it's course."

My eyes narrow as I wonder aloud, "You knew?"

My mother leans back in the chair and sighs. "What Prim told me about the wrestling match. Why would your magick awaken to benefit him if you felt nothing for him? Then there was the ribbon game during the spring celebration."

I look away, but my mother has one more thing to add, "When people gather for an event, their collective energy pools. It has a tendency to encourage certain...responses. Births and babies reinvigorate our appreciation for life and family. We consider motherhood and marriage. Death reminds us of our mortality. We reevaluate how we can make our lives mean something in the time we have. Toastings, on the other hand, stimulate the senses as well as…"

Mercifully, my mother lets the words trail off there and looks away for a moment as though suddenly she's lost in some stray memory. I'm feeling tired, too tired to stand, so I slide one of the chairs out from the table and slump into it. The brown bottle still sits in the middle of the table, the only thing on it, and I can't stop my eyes from glancing at it every other minute.

"When I saw how Fos and Fran's toasting effected you both, I knew it was a matter of time. It's not the first time a witch and her lover have been sensitive to that energy, and it won't be the last. But when we had to combine all of the toastings into one ceremony…it's never been done before. All of that energy channeled through you…"

My mother looks at me with some strange mixture of distress, remorse, and even awe. This is the very look she kept giving me in the meadow earlier tonight—at least now I can identify it and the reason behind it—and just like she did then, it's immediately hidden behind a neutral expression as she levels her eyes with mine. "Prim says you knew the love spell."

Every muscle in my body tightens at that. "He had feelings for me before I…I didn't know it would be…it's real, not a spell!" I sputter out, trying to defend my relationship with Peeta, whatever it may be or become. I'm doing such a poor job of it that I just give up and clasp my hands together in my lap, staring at them helplessly.

My mother offers me a gentle smile as one would give to soothe a small child. "I know it's real, Katniss. What…happened…tonight wouldn't have happened it if weren't."

I'm confused by that, but before I can ask what she means by this, she says, "The love spell doesn't force someone to feel love. All it does is call for your match, like a beacon."

I blink as that sinks in and can't help but chuckle, kind of laugh at myself. The information stamps out that last shred of doubt lurking in the far reaches of my mind and heart, but even with this news, there's something of what she said that bothers me and I can't let it go. "What did you mean it wouldn't have happened tonight if it weren't real?"

My mother stands from her chair with a weary sigh. "It's the last night of toastings, Katniss. Do you think nature would end it with a union that was anything less?" With that, she walks into her room and leaves me alone with that damned brown bottle.

* * *

_I'm dancing with my best friend during the spring celebration. She's laughing with her blond hair bouncing and her face pink from exertion. I'm sure I'm just as pink because we've been dancing for what feels like all night, but it was only since the ribbon game. She's the Spring Daughter this year, and my twin sister and I handed out the ribbons as we always do when she is._

_And she always is. I think they decide to make her the Spring Daughter every year because the only other eligible witches are me and my sister, and they're too afraid to cause strife between twin witches. Honestly, I don't mind, because I don't think I would like all of the attention that comes with being the Spring Daughter._

_My best friend pulls me away from the area where everyone's still dancing, and my sister slides her way through the tight crowds to join us. We're laughing and giggling and noticing the boys around us, but I have my eyes on one particular boy across the crowd. I'm not suppose to look at him this way; I'm not suppose to have these feelings for him because his hair is dark, his eyes are gray, his skin is darker, and he comes from the outer area of District 12, but I do. I have ever since last year when my ribbon was given to him in the ribbon game._

_Even after a year, I remember it so clearly, winding through the tightly packed crowd of merchants and Seam with my sister, taking turns handing out ribbons. I found out much later that I was the one to give my own ribbon away. Because we were blindfolded I didn't know, and so there was no one to claim it when he held it in his hand. It wasn't until the next day in school, at lunch, that I notice it tied around the arm of the Seam boy. I didn't have the courage to say anything to him then._

_It wasn't until he and his best friend, both of them brave enough to sneak beyond the fence and hunt, came into the apothecary to haggle with my best friend's parents. Seems there are plants that can't be found inside the bounds of our district, but flourished out there, beyond the fence._

_My best friend flipped her blond hair and giggled at the sight of his friend, but when I asked her if she has some interest in him, a question I've asked her several times before, she told me what she always tells me, that she has no interest in a Seam boy when she has the sweet, kind baker who loves her. For me, the Seam boy with my ribbon tied around his arm fascinated me then, and he still does to this day. That was the first day that I noticed the streaks of blue in his gray eyes and how his dark hair cascaded_ _down to his shoulders._

_It was the day that I gained the courage to follow him and his friend out of the apothecary and asked to speak with him alone, the day I told him that it was my ribbon he wore. In effect, it was the day I finally claimed my ribbon. When he smiled at me, the sun seemed to shine ten times brighter around us, and for that moment we almost forgot that we were in the middle of town. We must have started drawing attention to ourselves because his friend coughed loudly and my best friend called from the apothecary, "Maysilee!" shattering that moment between us._

_Before we parted, he picked up a dandelion from the ground, handed it to me, and said quickly, "I knew it was yours."_

_I didn't see or talk to him for days after. I didn't even see him in school. It wasn't until a toasting that I would again._

_Since our mother chose not to practice witchcraft, we were thankful that she allowed us to choose for ourselves, and so my sister and I would accompany my best friend and her mother to rituals and ceremonies. It was Seam toastings where I saw him. I could feel his eyes on me, and I didn't have the willpower to not look back. Each time we were in the same room, it was almost as though there was no one else but us. My best friend's mother would click her tongue in disapproval when she noticed._

_Then, on the last night of toastings, after the ritual, I trailed behind my sister, my best friend, and her mother on our way back to town when I noticed someone behind us. I recognized the shoulder-length hair immediately, and called ahead that I would stay behind. My best friend's mother gave me a curious look and asked me if I was sure. My best friend, however, gave me a knowing smirk before she urged her mother to go so that she could get back to town and see her sweet, kind baker._

_My sister was the one who saw him hiding in the shadows, and the last thing she said to me was, "We will talk when you get home," before turning and catching up with the other two._

_They were long out of sight before he took any step towards me. "What are you doing here?" I asked him as he approached._

_He shrugged. "Was on my way home from the woods. Hunted later than expected." If it wasn't for his intense eyes on me, I would have believed he was as calm as he was trying so desperately to seem, but I could see the sheen of sweat along his forehead and the way he wiped his hands against his pants as he added, "I saw the ritual and didn't want to interrupt."_

_"You could have walked around," I pointed to the outer area of the meadow as I held his gaze, not buying it at all._

_"I wanted to see you," he finally confessed with a defeated sigh._

_I tried to hold my scowl, but I felt the corner of my lips twitch upward and my brows ease which he took as his invitation to take a step closer to me. With that step came a hard thump in my chest._

_"Do you mind that I want to see you?" he asked me as he took another step closer and another thump came into my chest so hard that rattled my entire body._

_I couldn't find my voice enough to answer, so I did the only thing I could which was to shake my head and try to breath, especially when he'd come so close to me that I felt his body heat and his warm breath come out in heavy bursts against my face. Being so much taller than me, I had to tilt my head far back so that I could look him in the eye._

_"No?" he asked in such a deep, low rasp that it almost made my knees buckle._

_His eyes were smiling, and his lips feathered against mine. He refused to come any closer and kiss me, though. It was as if he were waiting for an answer to some question he didn't even ask, and my patience was at it's breaking point. I lifted myself on my toes to meet him, and that seemed to answer whatever damned question he had because his arms slipped under mine, drawing me up close to him, and used his tongue to follow the seam between my lips._

_It felt so good that they parted for him instantly and of their own volition, and he explored my mouth a half a second after._

_When we laid there on a worn patch of grass in the clearing of the meadow, in each others arms under the stars, he told me why he'd really come. Shown me why. From his pocket, he pulled out a pendant that was gold and beautiful. He said it was a mockingjay, and I know it had to cost him dearly. He shrugged at that, only saying that he loves hunting anyway. It suddenly occurred to me why I hadn't seen him in school. Had he been skipping school to hunt more...for this? I asked him, but he never answered._

_"He's looking at you," my best friend whispers in my ear, jarring me from my memories and I can't help but look._

_He's standing with his friend and a bunch of other Seam kids. They're dancing and laughing. There are some girls with their eyes on him, but his eyes are only on me. He still wears my ribbon tied around his arm, and I wear dandelions in my hair. They are symbols of what is between us. I smile at him and give a wink, a reminder for him that we'll meet later._

_And we do. The last of the spring celebrants leave and we hold our ritual. I know he's waiting in the meadow just outside of our view; I can feel him._

_I assure my best friend's mother that I can pack everything and bring it back to them later, that I want to stay in the meadow and perform my own ritual. It's the truth of sorts because what is between me and him is sacred to us._

_As soon as they are well out of sight, he sneaks up behind me, taking me in his arms with his hands locked together at my ribs, and we sway to that familiar rhythm we feel inside. The first night we felt it, last year, it was a bit scary and we didn't really know what had come over us, or know each other for that matter. But tonight, I picture us spending the rest of the night reveling in the energy we couldn't appreciate last year._

_As he holds me close to him, I lazily glance around us and notice the little, brown bottle sitting among other ritual items. My best friend must've hidden it for me before she left, somehow, without anyone noticing. I quietly thank her for it. Last year, I wasn't as well prepared._

_"Marry me, Maysie," he whispers in my ear. This is the third time he's asked me. I close my eyes and imagine our children at this very moment. A girl with dark hair and blue eyes dancing around us with her little sister, golden haired and gray eyed, chasing her. I'm so tempted to say "yes" but I know what will happen. I know that I would have to move to the Seam, that I will lose my family, my friends, my connection to the only practicing witches I know. I will have no one but him, and it scares me to give up so much._

_"Get her!" I hear from the grasses, and peacekeepers spring out towards us until they have me by each arm. My brave Seam boy tries to help me, but he's grabbed and held as well._

_"Maysilee Donner, you've been charged with witchcraft," the new head peacekeeper, Pane, says to me. I've heard of this happening. I haven't seen a burning since I was very little, but it seems I'll be the first since. I hear Pane mumble to one of the other officers about "getting the other three" and I scream out, "No!"_

_Everyone turn towards me and Pane eyes me expectantly._

_"I confess!" I shout. "I confess, that it's just me. They were trying to talk me out of it," I try to convince him, and it seems I'm successful because he tells another officer to cancel their arrests. What I don't expect is for him to smile and shift his attention to my brave Seam boy. "That means you're charged with conspiring with a known witch."_

_My eyes grow wide at the realization that I've traded his life for the lives of my sister, my best friend, and her mother. I cry out from a pain that isn't physical, but it might as well be as deep as it cuts. I beg Pane to let him go, to forgive him. I even admit to bewitching him, something the people in the Capitol say witches do, but Pane doesn't listen to anything more that I have to say._

_Our trial is laughable with some judge on a screen inside the Justice Building. He barely listens to anything said before he gives his verdict: guilty. Both of us are found guilty and hauled out into the center of town. New posts have been erected since the old ones were rusted through._

_We're tied to our posts, and I see my best friend and my sister holding each other and crying. Beside them, my brave Seam boy's friend stands without a trace of emotion. He gives an almost imperceptible nod before turning and walking away. Behind them, my mother collapses into my father's arms. I finally work up the courage to look by my side to face him. He's not looking at anything or anyone but me. I would think he'd hate me in these last moments, I'm the cause of his death after all, but all I see in his eyes is love. I should have said yes in the meadow. I should have given him that._

_Even when Mayor Undersee announces our judgement and sentence with a cracking voice and shaky hands, as scared as I am, I find a kind of peace in my mind, enough to offer my love a smile. Pane strolls past us with something in his hand and taps it several times until there's a flash and the flames blaze._

_I scream over the flames, "Haymitch! I'm sorry!" before the smoke becomes thick grit, like sandpaper, in my throat and lungs. Before I lose consciousness, I think I see a flash of blond instead of dark_ _hair_ _._

I shoot upright in my bed, my clothes drenched in sweat and I'm gasping for a clean breath of air.

"Katniss? Are you okay?" Prim asks me sleepily but I'm too terrified to speak. I do nod my head so that she can go back to sleep, though. My head starts to clear, and I can start tell the difference between what's real and what's not more and more. Maysilee wasn't real. Haymitch wasn't real, but the twinge in my gut tells me that I'm so very wrong. Then I remember Maysilee's best friend's face. It's familiar and not. It's my mother, younger, less burdened by time and loss.

I'm at the table long before my mother wakes and shuffles from her room. She gives me a curious look, but when I ask her, "Who's Maysilee?" all color in her face drains.

"Sh-she was my—" my mother stutters as she leans on one of the chairs at the table for support, but I'm the one to finish for her. "Your best friend."

Her knuckles whiten, and her chest is heaving for every single breath. She seems caught between curiosity and pain. "Sh-she died. Sh-she w-was—"

"Burned. She was a witch," I finish again.

My mother nods slowly as though she can barely believe it herself. "With—"

"With a boy named Haymitch."

Until now, my mother has been holding herself together just barely, but at the mention of his name, she starts to sob, slumped over the chair she's leaning on. "I think about them every day. They're the reason why I allowed myself to love your father, why I have two wonderful girls in the Seam."

It's my turn to be baffled by what she's saying. I don't remember this from my dream. I remember my mother had no interest in anyone but her...kind...sweet...baker... "You and Mr. Mellark?"

My mother shudders with more sobs and finally decides to give up and sit in the chair she was leaning on. She drops forward so that her face land in her hands, and I give her time to collect herself. It's hard for me to distinguish my feelings for my mother at the moment because part of me sees her as my best friend, someone I died for. The other part of me sees her as my mother, a person I haven't allowed myself that kind of closeness with in years. Part of me wants to hold her and tell her that everything will be okay.

I don't have time to decide what to do because she's already collected herself and stopped crying, wiping her tears away and straightening herself to talk to me.

"Your father and I were devastated. Even though he was unwelcome by Maysie's family, he still came when we buried what was left of her. I did the same for Haymitch. I always thought your father was handsome, but I thought I was in love already...until I heard him sing over Haymitch's grave. That's when I knew that I was lying to myself. I left town and my family, and all I took with me was Maysie's courage."

I think about that. Maysie's courage. To my mother, Maysie was courageous just by secretly seeing a Seam boy, but I know that Maysie would have been envious of my mother's courage for risking it all on nothing but love. I know Maysie would have been proud of my mother; I know this to my core so much so that I tell her. In response, my mother only stares at me and swallows hard.

"Maysie?"

Perhaps in a different life. In this one, I'm...

"Katniss, mama."

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	10. 10

Most of the town is awake as I walk down the main road. The lights in several storefronts switch off because the sun is high enough this early in the morning, but I can still see them moving inside, getting ready for the day ahead of them.

I'm alone in the street as I come close to the bakery. There's lots of movement inside, and I see him. There's a baker's apron tied around his neck, and the ties at his waist dangle free as he hefts the sack of flour that must be at least a hundred pounds.

I admire the muscles in his arms, exposed by his short-sleeved shirt, and those of his shoulders and back underneath the material. My heart flutters at the sight of him because he's beautiful. I can admit that, now.

He carries the sack from the storefront to the back and I follow through the windows from outside. Even with the sunlight, there's still a golden orange light that spills out from the side windows of the bakery that does nothing but halo his form. In the back, all I can see are shadows stretching and shrinking with those moving inside, but I know exactly which shadow is his.

Before I know it, I'm up the stairs and in front of their back door. I'm not sure what brought me to these steps, or even into town, but I'm already here, so with some shred of courage I can muster I tap my knuckles on the door. It's a soft tap because I half hope that no one will hear it, that no one will answer and I can just turn and go home, but one second later there's a loud thump behind the door before it swings open. The golden light spills out, and again, it surrounds Peeta in a halo of golden orange light. He's red-faced and sweating, and I can't help but think that it's not unlike how I'd seen him before, last night, for very different reasons.

The thought causes a flush of heat throughout my body, and I can barely look up at him, let alone meet his eyes.

"I thought I heard a knock," he says with an unsure voice, "and somehow I knew it was you." His voice may be unsure, but his eyes are anything but. In them I see the same resolve I'd seen last night when he was ready to tell the entire district that we are together.

"What are you doing here?" There's a hint of a smile that starts to form on his face before a panic settles in quickly, perhaps realizing how it almost sounds as though he doesn't want me here. "Not that I'm complaining, but I thought you weren't ready to let everyone know."

All I can do is stand there and stare at him mutely because I don't have an answer to his question. I wish I did.

I couldn't go back to sleep after my dream, after the talk with my mother that sent her retreating back into her room. I could've gone hunting, but nothing in my mind and body had any desire for it. That alone unnerves me because I've always found comfort and stability in the woods. Even as I dressed myself this morning, I had an inkling of, but refused to acknowledge where I really wanted to be. So how am I suppose to know why I'm here?

Over his shoulder, I see another head of blond hair pass through the room behind him until it stops and rises high enough for me to see a face. His older brother's craning his neck to see who's at the door and gives such a smug smile that I start to consider spinning myself around and running home. Peeta turns and notices his brother, then quickly steps through the door to close it behind him. The last thing that I see inside the bakery is his brother saying something that I can't quite hear, but if I read his lip correctly, it was "Finally."

Peeta leads me to his back yard, close to the apple tree, and we share several shy glances and halted sentences along the way. We don't seem to know what to say to break this awkwardness between us. What is there to say after the night we've had together? Or should we have plenty to say because of it?

Suddenly, he's the one to break the silence, and it's not what I was expecting. "Are you here to tell me it was a mistake?" His entire body seems as tightly strung as my bow, and his face is wiped clean of any emotions he's feeling, steeling himself for the bad news to come.

I didn't come here to worry him, to make him feel insecure. His skin is so warm when I caress my fingertips against his cheek, and the words slip out without realizing what I'm saying. "I just...I needed to see you."

At that we both exhale deeply, releasing the tension that's built between us. For him, maybe this means that I've finally convinced him that I'm ready to give this strange, sudden thing between us a chance. For me, the simple act of acknowledging what I want aloud feels liberating.

And for my honesty, I'm rewarded with a smile that spreads across his face freely. I still can't manage to meet his eyes, though, and he notices. His finger lifts my chin and his face comes close to mine until there is nowhere I can look but at the two blue pools focused on me. "Good," he says and it's not clear whether it's in response to my reason for being here or because he managed to trap my gaze to his. Ultimately, it really doesn't matter because the way he says it reverberates in my ears, in my chest, and straight down to my knees. He has me. All of me. Unlike last night, I'm in full control of what I want, and what I want is to be here with him.

His hands cup either side of my face, and his lips are so close to mine that I can feel their warmth already. This feels right, as though it's something that has always been and always will be, and I close my eyes in anticipation of the contact.

But it never comes.

Sirens blare from the other end of town, and our heads snap away from each other and in that direction. It's only now that we notice Peeta's brother and Delly standing by the stairs. They'd been watching us, but I don't think about that because the sirens make my ears hurt even from so far away. There's also a knot in my stomach that tightens as Peeta grabs my hand and we rush to the front of the store behind Delly and her Mellark.

People step out of their storefronts to have a look, but it's Delly's little brother that comes barreling down the road screaming for his sister. By the time he reaches the four of us, he's huffing and puffing to catch his breath, eager to tell us whatever news he has. It takes a minute or two to collect himself, but something else distracts him. His eyes are locked onto something and everyone follows his line of sight to the exact place where my hand is connected to Peeta's. Delly's brother seems mesmerized by the simple gesture until I release Peeta's hand and take a half step away.

I know by doing this, I've hurt Peeta, I don't have to look at him to know it, but my nerves are already frayed because of the sirens even though I don't know why or where they're sounding. I can't take the attention added to that just yet.

Even though the damage has been done, Delly calls her brother to get his attention, urging him to tell us the news.

"They…" the boy starts but I can't tell if he's pausing because he's still catching his breath or because he can barely belief what he has to say, "they stole…"

We nods, obviously trying to be patience with him but just as eager to know as the rest of us. "...weapons!"

Delly gasps and covers her mouth with her hands in horror, but her horror cannot match mine, the cold chill in my spine and that knot in my stomach that only twists tighter and tighter. None of us need to know who "they" are because it's clear: the rebellion struck again. Gale and his "friends" and poor unwitting Madge. That's when I remember the sack Gale carried through the meadow last night towards the fence. I'm already down the road, into the Seam, through meadow where I know Gale had gone, warring with myself that I also know it was him who did this but I don't want to believe he could do something this bad.

When I get to the house in the woods, it doesn't seem different to my eyes, not at first, but then I notice the feel of it. Something's different, something's inside with an entirely different energy than what it's always housed. I step inside and don't see anything. I search old shelves and cupboards. Nothing.

That's when I noticed the remnants of the old floor boards. There are a few scattered about, but there are several in a corner in what could pass for a haphazard pattern if I didn't know this place like the back of my hand.

I move them, and underneath, the dirt has been disturbed which sends me into a digging frenzy. My fingernails splinter and my skin feels raw scraping against so much dirt but I don't stop until I scratch against some material, burlap. I don't open it, I just sit there staring at it for quite some time because even though I knew what I would find, what I would confirm, I didn't want to believe it. Now, with the proof staring at me, I have no choice but to digest that my best friend's done something that will bring the wrath of Panem down on our district, more eyes on my family. My best friend stole weapons from the Peacekeepers, two of the highest crimes in Panem besides witchcraft: stealing from Peacekeepers and possessing weapons.

Out of sheer anger, I reach for the sack to pull it from the ground, but instead my hand pulls out one of the rifles. The metal and plastic feels cold against my dirt-caked palms and the feeling snakes its way up my arms and into my heart. That's when I feel it. It's not cold anymore, but hot, very hot. It's burning my insides, my skin, my face. I can smell singed hair and hear someone crying. It's so faint that it could simply be the wind that's gusted up and into the house. Still, I think of Prim.

I drop the weapon on the ground and sprint out of the woods and back to my district. The first place I rush to is my home. There are herbs spread over the table in mid preparation for drying. My mother and Prim would never leave them like this, so I know where to look next.

I running through the main road in town when I'm stopped by Peeta, his brother and Delly. Delly tries to say something to me, but she's in tears, and I can barely make out a single word.

Realizing that it's a lost cause, Peeta tries to step in by saying, "Katniss, they—" but he says nothing else because I'm already turned to run for the Justice Building. He stops me, though, by the arm and I wrench it free. "Stay away from me!" I scream at him. In my periphery, I can see people gathered and looking at us, but I don't care in this moment. I don't want this to be ambiguous; I don't want him anywhere near me. What I have to do will cost my life as well as the life of anyone close to me.

People have gathered in the town square, and I see Thread and Otho talking on the steps of the Justice Building with my mother and sister bound and surround by five other peacekeepers. I rush to them, ignoring the smug smile Otho carries just for me as I beg for Thread to listen to me. I ignore my mother and Prim's pleas for me not to say anything as I tell him that I'm the witch, that it's just me, and this makes the hairs on my skin stand on end with its familiarity.

Thread eyes me carefully, every so often his focus shooting to my sister and mother, then back up to my face. He jerks his head in my direction, and two peacekeepers grab me. "Your mother and sister have been found guilty of witchcraft."

My heart sinks. I'm too late.

Otho leans into Thread's ear as though he's whispering, but I can hear him. I'm sure he wants me to hear every word.

"Sir, the broadcast time frame has already been set for the burning," Otho slides his eyes in my direction as he says it. "I don't think a trial is necessary to tack on a confessed witch. "

Thread nods and turns back to me. I see his mouth open and close, but I can't hear anything after what Otho told him. Not only am I going to burn, but it won't help my sister or my mother. I sink into the grip of the peacekeepers holding me as the voices around me are nothing more than a buzz.

They tie us to the posts, one by one, and I sag in defeat. Prim, closest to me, tries to explain what happened, how they were caught but the words take time to order in my mind enough to understand. The peacekeepers raided every home immediately after they'd learned of the stolen weapons, and ours was their first stop. Part of me wonders if Otho had something to do with that, whispering in Thread's ear that we might have ties to the rebellion.

In our home they found the hidden bottles of potions. They were hidden well, I know they were, and wouldn't have been found if peacekeepers weren't doing such a thorough search for weapons. Those, as well as the herbs, was enough for Thread to take them into custody, and it seems enough to sentence them to death.

I listen passively until Prim stops talking. The only thing that brings me out of my own despair is the sound of her sniffles. Prim's eyes are closed and her lips are pressed tightly together, and I know this look. She's trying to hold it together but how can anyone under the circumstances. We're waiting for our execution.

More of the town gathers around, kept at a distance by a chain of peacekeepers several feet away, and I search the sea of faces. He's there in the crowd. Peeta stands with his brother and Delly, and I find a pitiful shred of relief in all of this. I couldn't save Prim, I couldn't save my mother, but at least I didn't get him killed.

And with what little relief I have of that comes a spring of courage. "It'll be okay, little duck. It'll all be okay," I say to her, but she's no longer sniffling but chanting. Soon, my mother joins in.

Otho and Thread stroll over with another peacekeeper who has a camera mounted on his shoulder. While Thread and the cameraman discuss which is the best "angle for the shot," Otho swaggers up beside my post. "Got away from me for years," he whispers to me so that Thread can't hear him. "So now it's time for you to smile for all of Panem."

My courage has shifted into anger, and to show him and all who have brought me to this death some defiance, I begin to chant with my sister and mother.

It's only now that the fluffy clouds that were spread across the sky converge above us as one massive sheet of raincloud, deep gray and the color of Seam eyes.

Thread seems annoyed, and I can only guess it's because the mayor hasn't arrived yet. They can't begin until he arrives, but when the time passes and I'm sure the embarrassment mounts with all of Panem watching nothing but three women tied to posts and agitated peacekeepers, Otho whispers to Thread, "We should start without him. He can pay for this later."

Thread nods and hands him something before standing in front of my mother. He begins the call of charges and punishment for each of us, but we continue chanting. Even when Otho taps the object in his hand, we continue chanting. It rains and we continue chanting. Suddenly, Otho looks up from the object at us with a frown before tapping it again. From the way Thread frowns at him, I can only guess that something is wrong.

At the same time, a large section of the crowd starts to push at the peacekeepers, who in turn use their clubs to beat them back. This only causes more of District Twelve to join into the fight, now angered by the abuse of those beaten to the ground. The scene has become violent and unruly, and I'm sure not the image of what the Capitol wanted to air.

"It won't ignite," Otho growls in frustration.

Thread huffs and snatches the object from Otho before tapping a few times, but he has the same result: nothing. He taps again, but this time he doesn't seem to care that no flames shoot out from the ground underneath us. I know something has changed, I can smell it in the air and see the way he confidently takes a few steps in our direction before lighting a match from his pocket and flicking it in our direction. Despite the downpour that the rain has become, the flames shoot up and around us.

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	11. 11

The flames surround my body and lick at my face as I hear Prim scream. The sound of her in pain, afraid, causes me to pull and squirm and shake against the binds around my wrists and scream her name as loudly as I can. My only hope is that the can hear me, can be comforted even a little bit that I'm still here with her. The sounds of her name grow weak and raspy in my throat and the heat grows more intense. At first, I don't see the shadowed figure emerge from the struggle between district and peacekeepers beyond us until it's only a few steps away.

The shape and gait of it's familiar, and with each step it takes, the flames slow until the stop altogether. It's in front of me now, and still I can't make out specific features of clothes or face but I don't need to when I hear the voice. "Katniss."

"Daddy?" I sound like a little girl again, and I feel like one too when the features take shape and the shadows disappear. It's my father standing in front of me with his loving, smiling face. I pull at my binds again to run into his arms and hold him but I can't, and his smile fades at that.

"Oh, my girl," he says softly as Seam gray eyes shine against the stilled fire light. "You've been fighting for so long: against what you feel, who you are."

He raises his hand to cup my face but it passes through me like the flames. And like the flames, I feel it all the same with a comforting warmth that can only be my father. "It's time to let go, Katniss." His face and body are enveloped by the shadows again as he tells me one last time, "Just let go."

The shadow fades as the fire starts to move and dance around me again with his words echoing in my head. "Just let go."

If he wants me to let the fire take me and be with him again, I can do that. I stop fighting and allow the flames to consume me, and allow them to become a part of me as they grow higher and hotter. My body becomes limp and slumps forward. I'm not prepared for it when I keep falling and barely catch myself before my head hits the ground. I'm on my hands and knees, desperately crawling away from the fire while sucking in as much of the clear, cooler air as I can. There's no time to wonder how this happened, because my next thought is to free my mother and sister.

A quick glance to my side let's me know that they're on the ground as well. Prim's hands clutch at her throat, probably just as raw as mine while my mother crawls to her. Around us, the district has stopped completely. The scene would have been funny if not for the circumstances, to see so many frozen in their place and focused on us with hanging jaws, peacekeepers and district citizens alike. I'm sure the only reason they could think of why our bonds came undone has something to do with witchcraft. Perhaps they're right, but I don't care because I'm still alive with my family.

It's only moments later when a peacekeeper seizes the opportunity to get the upper hand against someone from the Seam, and the violence begins again. The town has descended into absolute chaos. The people from our district do the best they can against the well-armed, well-trained force, but when the first shot fires and one person lays face down on the ground, everyone scatters.

Even as the people run away, the peacekeepers' guns are pointed and fire on them. Several more fall, some writhing in pain while others don't move at all.

More shots fire from the opposite direction, and I jump at the sounds, partly because of the sound but mostly because I fear for everyone in my district. I'm sure the Peacekeepers have surrounded us and will kill every last man, woman, and child they see, but then I see the people carrying the guns aren't peacekeepers but Seam. Leading them is Gale who fires shot after shot. Unlike those around him, he doesn't miss his mark.

My stomach clenches with each peacekeeper to fall at his hand. They have been the unquestionable authority in my district since long before I was born, and no good could come from shooting them, killing them, even if its to stand up for ourselves.

Someone tugs at my arm, distracting me from the carnage on both sides. It's Peeta by my side and saying something that I can't understand. I see his lips moving and know that the sounds from him should make sense but none of them form coherent words in my head. Even dazed, Prim and my mother are still a priority in my mind, so I turn back to assure myself that they are still alive. I'm surprised to see my mother in Mr. Mellark's arms as he rushes away from the post fires still burning behind us and the violence in front of us. Prim's barely conscious and tucked into Thom's arms as he follows closely behind Mr. Mellark. The sound of gunfire is a constant around us.

Peeta's arms slip underneath my legs and behind my back, and my body is off of the ground for a few seconds before Peeta trips and we both fall. There's a grunt of frustration and we hear a familiar voice call out, "Boy!"

We both look up to see Otho toss something aside before he storms at us. Peeta charges at him until they collide somewhere in the middle. Otho has been trained in hand to hand combat, we know all peacekeepers have, but in a way, so has Peeta. There are moments when I think Otho has the upper hand until Peeta slips from his grip and pins the man down. They struggle, but it's Peeta over Otho in the end. The man struggles beneath him, but Peeta sends a hard punch to his jaw that sounds loud and cracking and wet. Then another and another until Peeta satisfied that Otho won't recover quickly, that he won't get back up. I think his only goal is to give us enough time to run and hide.

From the effort, he looks winded and weak but his eyes are focused on me. I find my strength in him, my legs finally cooperating with me to stand, but I have no time to get to Peeta because Thread is standing only a few feet away from us reaching for his hand gun.

"Execution of a witch. What does it matter if it's by fire or by gun," he snarls and I close my eyes just before another shot is fired.

I'm surprised that I'm still standing several seconds after, and I'm half afraid to open my eyes but I do. A red splotch forms on his uniform and spreads until it covers half his chest. Thread's frozen in a state of disbelief before he hits the ground and then there's Madge revealed behind him. She's standing with her gun held at shoulder height and no hint of remorse for killing the man. In fact, I see a hint of satisfaction in the barely upturned corners of her lips.

Peeta's brows furrow hard at Madge and her handiwork but seems more disoriented and wobbly. He's about to fall and I catch him, but his body's too heavy for me to hold fully so we fall together. On the way down, I make sure to cushion his head as best I can.

Madge is the first to notice his pants soaked with blood at his thigh. The dark material made it hard to see at first, but now it's all I can see. There's so much and I don't know how long he's had this wound but I can see how much blood he's lost, and it scares me. I don't need Prim or my mother to tell me he's already lost a dangerous amount.

Gale leaves the chaos to help us and my fury flares to have him so near, with Peeta covered in his own blood, with the fires still raging behind us that almost killed me and my family. "This is your fault. All because of you!" I sneer and seethe with hatred while shoving his hand away and cradling Peeta's head closer to me. "Just stay away from me and mine!"

He looks at me, that hurt look in his eyes but I don't care. It's just what I expected: he brought the wrath of the Capitol on our district and in doing so, has endangered the lives of the people I love.

Gale turns to Madge for a moment and they share a look before he glances at Peeta then tugs at the objects he's been carrying behind his back. I've been too distracted to notice until now, but he tosses my bow and quiver of arrows to the ground before gripping his weapon tightly and heading back into the fray.

Madge stares at me, her eyes hard and focused, and I can't be sure if it's disapproval or something else before she slings one of Peeta's arms over her shoulders. I can't say at the moment I care how she feels about the way I treated Gale; I'm just glad she's helping me with Peeta. I slide my quiver over my shoulder and my bow through my other arm before reaching for Peeta to help support him. Together, we make it down the main road where there's less fighting, but we still have to stop long enough for me to take down a peacekeeper who spots us.

We're close to the bakery when we hear the hissing sounds of someone trying to get our attention. Thom's at the side of the bakery waving for us to follow, and I'm grateful that he's there because Peeta's been getting heavier for the two of us and I have hope to lay him somewhere safe. At first, when Thom tries to take Peeta from me I struggle against him because I don't want to let go, but then I hear my father's words again. "Just let go."

And I do. No sooner that I give up Peeta's weight to him that I spot a Peacekeeper level his gun in our direction. In response, I reach for an arrow instinctively, nock it, and pull the bowstring taut. The man falls to the ground but not before the shot he released hits the side of the bakery between Peeta's head and mine. It's a hair's breadth from either of us and if I hadn't shot him with the arrow, it probably would have found its mark, whichever one of us it was. I stare at the man across the road, on the ground dead and think about the two others I'd killed on our way here. Their deaths were my doing. For good or bad, I'm in this rebellion, now.

I follow Madge and Thom with Peeta between them inside the back of the bakery to find Prim sitting in a chair with the back of it at the wooden table. My mother kneels in from of her, examining my little sister's burns, testing how severe they are while we hear a heated argument in the next room that could only be Mr. and Mrs. Mellark. I don't care what they're fighting about because Peeta hasn't raised his head since we came close to the bakery. He's dying right before my eyes and without thinking, I scream, "Mama, help!" My voice sounds just as scared and childlike as I feel.

In a heartbeat she's with us, at first her eyes scan my body and quickly confirm that I'm fine, then her eyes take in his form thoroughly as the Mellarks step out from the other room cautiously. "What happened?" Mr. Mellark rushes to us as well, desperate to hold Peeta but holding back so that he doesn't interrupt my mother's assessment of him.

"Lay him down," my mother says and without hesitation, Mr. Mellark sweeps everything from the large table in the room with one arm. He snatches Peeta from Thom and Madge, and I begin to protest when I feel a small hand hold mine. Prim's looking up at me with sympathy, yet her eyes are firm, telling me to stay out of it. I grip her hand tightly and agree…for now. But it's only now that I see for the first time the patches of raw, burned skin on her cheeks and the back of her hands. Even so, I comfort myself with the thought that it could've been worse. If it wasn't for the rains soaking us through right before the blaze, we may not have come out of this so well.

My mother examines the wound that's high up on his thigh through the hole in his pants. Mrs. Mellark isn't being helpful as she stands in a corner of the room and makes her comments about how it's my family that did this to him, that brought this on the entire district.

I ignore her, watching my mother cut away his pants and pulling away the blood soaked material that clings to his skin from him. His underwear is his last shred of modesty before my mother cuts away at that too.

Mr. Mellark hands my mother a towel and when the blood has been wiped away, the wound is visible: torn flesh, round and so small to cause so much damage. The worst is that there's very little blood spilling from it anymore. His body is pale and drenched in sweat. I'm not my mother or my sister, but I know that this isn't good.

My mother nods to Prim and my little sister releases my hand and steps up to Mr. Mellark, asking him for herbs, and then my mother's eyes land on me.

"Katniss!" I try to listen to her, but all I can hear is my heart pounding as I stare at the wound that will kill Peeta.

"Katniss!" my mother says again, but this time she's next to me, holding my shoulders tightly and giving me a slight shake. It's enough to pry my focus from him to her. "The odds aren't in his favor," she tells me, and I stare at him again.

She gives me another shake to bring my focus back to her. "You'll have to keep it together if you want any chance to save him." She stands there staring at me because I don't say a word. It takes time for her words to fully sink in. I nod, but I'm not sure how I can help.

"Go home and get the Book," she tells me but the idea of leaving Peeta here causes rage to bubble to the surface. He could die while I'm gone. How will I be able to say goodbye?

"No," I tell her and my tone leaves no question that I mean it. In response, she huffs, but it's Prim at our side with jars of herbs that must have come from the Mellark stores.

"I'll go," she speaks up, clearly hoping to diffuse the tension.

I nod to my sister and give her the best smile I can muster. It's not much, barely a grin, but it's all I have as I thank my little duck for doing this. I know we need the Book, but I can't leave him. In fact, I lean over the table to cradle his head in the crook of my arm while I brush the strands of hair from his face. If he's going to die, he's going to die in my arms.

Mrs. Mellark is about to protest, tell me what she thinks of me touching her son, but Mr. Mellark catches her in mid-stride, pulling her into the adjoining room they'd come from earlier.

I hear yelling, but I don't want Peeta's last moments to be their voices filled with anger and what seems like years of resentment. And so I begin to sing.

Every song my father taught me, every song I've heard growing up, I sing to him. When I run out of them, I start again. My focus is on him alone, but I'm half aware when Mr. Mellark brings me a stool to sit on and when Prim returns with the Book tucked under her arm and some herbs and bottles from our stores.

My mother and sister talk around me, most likely discussing their best course of action for his wound, but their voices are little more than buzzing in the background as I continue to sing. It doesn't matter anyway because their conversation isn't meant for me. At one point, however, Prim tries to break the news to me that he won't make it with where his wound is and the amount of blood lost. I barely hear her because my voice rises in song to drown her out. The tears fall down my cheeks and burn with regret, but I'm not sure for which reason. Either it's because I let him into my world and he was hurt for it, or because I didn't claim my ribbon that very day during the Spring Celebration.

Madge is the next to come long after the windows have turned black with night and the only light in the room is the lantern. I can hear her trying to talk to me through my singing, and I can feel her mounting frustration that my attention won't shift to her. Still, she continues with what she has to say, why she's here.

"I'm sorry, Katniss," she says before she rests something in my sights on the table beside Peeta. I barely register the glint of gold and the emblem of the mockingjay within the circle as I continue to sing and cradle Peeta's head in my arm.

"Gale wasn't the one to start this, he wasn't the one to bring the rebellion here to District Twelve. It was me."

I'm still singing, but my eyes shoot up to meet hers. I try to relax the tension in my shoulders that I know shoot down to my arms. I don't want that for him in his last moments.

Madge has the decency to fidget under my gaze. "I want to make them pay. They killed my aunt! Did you know that? And my mother hasn't been the same since. They robbed me of my mother, Katniss. Besides, don't you want the chance to be free of them, to stop being scared everyday?"

I continue to sing as my eyes drop back down to Peeta. I think that's enough of an answer. Bringing the rebellion here hasn't changed anything. I'm still scared, but now lives have been lost, and my family's were almost among them. Now, it's Peeta's life to count in the death toll.

With a quick glance around me, Madge is gone but the mockingjay pin is still on the table. I thought, through my songs, I heard her say that it belonged to her aunt but it should belong to me, now.

For hours Peeta and I are the only ones in the room. My throat becomes dry and my voice has deteriorated into scratchy warbles, and still I continue to sing and hold his head in my arm as I caress his face.

The light from the window brightens and my head droops to the side until I fall asleep.

* * *

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	12. 12

My dreams are like the ones I've had since my father died, except instead of explosions and charred, broken bodies everywhere, the people have bullet wounds, laying in pools of their own blood. Like my other dreams, I turn over each one, searching for a face and hoping it's not too late. This time it's not my father I'm looking for; it's Peeta. I hear the gurgling sounds of someone near death, and see somewhere ahead of me a body writhing and shaking. There's a hint of blond hair, and I know it's him, and I lift myself up and try to step over the several bodies between us, but I can't move.

Otho's hands hold my arms behind me and there are other peacekeepers flanking him. I struggle to break free of his grip, to get to Peeta, but it only tightens all that much more until it's no longer his hands on my arms but my wrists bound behind a post. Prim is beside me and she's crying, and I can still see Peeta beyond my reach, his chest lifts with some effort. The fire ignites and the flames surround us, and I live long enough to watch Peeta take his last breath, and Prim's not long after.

Far off in the distance, I hear another voice screaming, crying out in pain and it sounds familiar. It's not until the scene around me fades that I realize it's my voice, my real voice. Someone's holding me down, and I squirm and struggle to break free because I have to save Peeta and Prim, but something about the hold is vaguely familiar to me, enough to calm me. And then I hear silence, absolute silence. It stabs me in the heart because only then does it occur to me that I'm dreaming, which means I fell asleep. It means I broke my promise to Peeta that I would sing for him, that I wouldn't let him go quietly.

My eyes snap open, and I see the sunlight through the window of the room behind the bakery. I feel the body underneath me and feel the dread that I've failed him, but then I allow myself to hear the thumping at my ear. I shift my head and see Peeta from the angle of his chest. I lift myself up into a sitting position, his hands fall from my body to let me go and his eyes are open and on me.

"Katniss? We heard you scream." Prim calls me from the back door, and I see my mother standing next to her. "We thought he…" She doesn't have to say the rest. I know what she thought because I thought the same. No one expected him to survive the night, but he did.

His hand reaches up to cup my face as he says so weakly that it's barely audible, "You had a nightmare." It breaks my heart to hear him this way until I remind myself of the more important thought. "You're alive!" I scream and immediately press my hands to my mouth to stop the choking sounds that I can't stop. The tears are flowing down my cheeks and I have trouble breathing through my nose that adds snorts and sniffles to the choking sounds. He's too tired to keep his arm up and it falls back down to his side.

Mr. and Mrs. Mellark are standing at the door that, I guess, leads to the bakery front with his older brother behind them.

They're staring at me and Peeta in stunned silence until Peeta's brother breaks it with, "I told you he wouldn't die with an Everdeen by his side."

His mother whirls around and the back of her hand comes crashing to the side of his face with a hard smacking sound, ending his good-natured laugh quickly. Peeta's brother meant no harm. Even though it was embarrassing for me, I know that. And I can't help but wonder if she treats all of her sons this way, including Peeta. I wish bad things for this woman, in spite of what I was always taught—witches have to be very careful while focusing thoughts—and coming to terms that it applies to me as well. My mother must catch my intense focus on the woman because she barks out my name that snaps me out of my trance.

I'm a little disoriented, and she uses that moment to rush to Peeta, checking his pulse, his eyes, and then she moves down to his leg.

The weather's very warm now. With the added warmth of the ovens in the next room, he wouldn't need a blanket even though I wish they would cover him with one instead of the towel they have draped across his hips. My mother tosses it to the side with little care that he's exposed to everyone in the room, and I can't help myself when I take a corner and pull it until it covers just enough. I make sure the bandage around the wound high up on his leg is still exposed, but also that little else is.

My mother glances at my work, then at me before gently unwrapping the bandage and bending for a better look at the torn flesh. What catches my attention more is the soft, weak chuckle from Peeta. "You're so pure," he rasps as his hand wavers in the air to gently brush my cheek with the back of his hand, and I can't help but smile. He's alive, and then my mother speaks.

"So do you want the good news or the bad news first, young man?"

I take his hand from my cheek and hold it between my hands. "Good, and then the bad please, Mrs. Everdeen," he says to her and my hands squeeze his. I hope that he interprets it as a sort of comfort rather than the fear and panic that it actually is.

"Well," she begins before accepting the fresh bandage Prim hands her, "the good news is that you're alive right now, and that is a blessing in and of itself." Her bluntness takes me by surprise, even though I've seen her this way before with many people in the past. I guess the only difference is that the person she's caring for is someone I care about.

"The bad news…" she continues and my hands clench tighter. Peeta rounds his fingers until they hold one of my hands to give me a reassuring squeeze. It's clear he's better at it than I am. "…is that the bullet is still lodged in there. It has to be removed, and it's something that's beyond my capabilities."

"But…" is all I can get out. I want to yell at her and tell her to fix the problem, to make him better, to make his pain go away. I feel so small, like a little girl hoping for a kiss on her cut from mama to make it all better. I want that so badly, but I know my mother knows her limits. Peeta's hand slips from mine as I stand to face my mother with a new resolve. "What do we need?"

"A Capitol doctor with his fancy equipment," she says, then whispers, "I think it hit bone."

I look around the room frantically, and find what I'm looking for before storming out of the backroom of the bakery. I hear Prim and my mother calling for me, asking me what I plan to do, but I'm sure they know.

The streets are empty and quiet. I've never seen them this way in the daytime. It's an eerie experience, but it makes my job easier as I stomp quickly across town to my destination. Thom and another Seam boy that I've only seen in passing, sit outside the doors of the barracks with guns across their laps. My approach interrupted whatever conversation they were having.

"Katniss?" Thom says my name but isn't sure what to make of me. I know I look like fury herself, and I hope that's enough that they won't get in my way. I'm still holding out hope that I won't have to hurt anyone today.

The cells used for locking up people in District Twelve are filled with peacekeepers and Capitol citizens, but there's one in particular that I'm looking for. He isn't in any of the cells that I see, so I push through the armed Seam folk and dash down the stairs leading to the rest of the cells. He's there packed in with a bunch of peacekeepers with his head in his hands. I've only seen him in town when he shops, but I recognize the face immediately. I think maybe he's had a long night, but then I remember that Peeta's definitely had a long night, trying to stay alive and all.

"You!" I point a finger to him, and his eyes meet mine lazily.

Someone from the rebellion opens the door while others point their guns at the remaining captives. He's pulled out and the cell is locked behind him. "What more do you want?" he asks me and I see the bruises on his jaw and a cut on his forehead.

"I need your help," I say to him, and he just shakes his head and turns it away from me. That's when the tip of one of my arrows comes in contact with his temple as I pull my bowstring taut.

* * *

The doctor unpacks his bag full of the latest, greatest Capitol technology before turning his attention to Peeta's leg.

"I take it, this…person…was wounded while murdering those brave men and women who dedicated their lives to protecting your people," he says while trying to sound calm, but it all comes across as anything but.

"Protecting?" is the first thing I have to ask because I really have to wonder if he recognizes me, or Prim who sits in a chair across the table where Peeta lays, or my mother standing close behind him, watching carefully. "I don't think they were protecting me, or my baby sister who wouldn't hurt a fly, or my mother who has helped more people in this district than you ever have."

His head jerks up to see me fully. There's recognition in his eyes, now, and a little more fear in them as well, more than when I had my arrow pressed against his head. "You're the…"

I ignore his reaction as I walk to the table and lean on it with Peeta below me, unconscious from some serum the doctor injected into his arm. My mother told me it was better than sleep serum.

"And this _person_," I say because there's something more important for him to know. "His only crime was trying to help me. Trying to get me to safety without getting _anyone_ killed in the process." To make it clear what I'm trying to tell him, I say it as bluntly as I can. "You see, doctor, most of this district would like to see you and those brave protectors of ours pay for every little injustice we've suffered. Perhaps to burn or starve or be whipped. Peeta's one of the few of us that doesn't want any of it. All he wants is…"

I pause at that last thought because it makes me tear up and that's the last thing I want to do in front of the doctor. I think of Peeta never once lifting one of those stolen guns. And if he wanted, he could have killed Otho, but he didn't. All he wanted to do was incapacitate the man so that he could do what he originally set out to do: get me to a safe place.

In my head, I finish the thought and it makes me choke with a sob. All he wants is…me.

Prim wraps her small arms around me and guides me to the chair she was sitting in before joining our mother to watch the doctor work. He presses a few buttons on some devices and starts to insert them into the wound. The moment I see fresh blood ooze out of Peeta's wound, I close my eyes and sing to shut out the sounds of whirring and slicing and wet sounds.

The windows in the back of the bakery are black again before the doctor's done with Peeta. There are sounds, people talking, and I think I hear Gale's voice before a door closes. My mother stands in back of me with her hands on my shoulders.

"He'll live," she tells me, "but his leg won't be the same."

I rest my hand on one of hers, open my eyes to look at the table, at Peeta still sleeping peacefully. I'm so tired, I can't think of anything to do but fold my arms on the table beside him and rest my head on them. Thankfully, I don't dream.

* * *

It's been almost two weeks since the doctor removed the bullet. Peeta's been moved to his room and I've been sitting by his side since. The only food I eat is what my mother, sister, Peeta's brother, or Mr. Mellark shove in front of me. Bathroom breaks are a rare thing which should tell me that I'm dehydrated, but I don't allow myself to notice. My fear is that the moment I leave, I'll lose him. It's irrational, but I keep hearing his brother's words in my head. "He wouldn't die with an Everdeen at his side."

I may be able to ignore the signs of dehydration, but my mother doesn't. She turns my head to face her, no attempt to be gentle about it, and gives me the look I haven't seen since I was little. It's a disapproving look that speaks volumes in seconds.

"Prim's home and she's preparing a meal and a bath for you. You're going to go home and eat what she's made. You're going to bathe and drink lots of water. And then you're going to get in your bed and sleep."

I only blink in response because my first inclination is to pull away and ignore her as I've done for years. I can't do that now. The relationship between me and my mother is still broken, but it's shifted into something different. We're different people now. Or am I the only one who's changed?

Deep down, I know she's right, and I take one last glance at Peeta laying there and hope that his brother's words meant any Everdeen before I stand and leave.

It feels strange to be carrying my bow and arrows in the open, and it's clear others feel the same way as they stare at me for a long moment before carrying on about their daily tasks. And they are, carrying on as though me and my family weren't burned in the square and a full-blown rebellion a couple of weeks ago. Even so, the air is heavy with some sort of dread and everyone glances up at the sky once in a while. It suddenly occurs to me that we're still waiting for the Capitol's retaliation in whatever form it will be.

The mines are shut down so the Seam is busier than ever this time of day as I walk home. Prim's in the house cooking just as I was told to expect and the tub is set out with steaming water.

"Oh, good. Mama was able to convince you," she says as though our mother would have given me a choice. While she cooks, I undo my braid and let it fall into manageable waves as I step out of my clothes and into the water. It feels good, I have to admit, but my mind constantly wanders back to Peeta.

"He'll be fine," Prim says when she passes by the tub to place my meal on the table. "Mama will see to that."

I know this as well.

"I have to go back to help her. Make sure you eat every last bite and drink ever last drop," she says as she points to the plate of food and pitcher of water before rushing out the door. It's amazing how much like our mother she's can be.

The plate of food I manage to finish easily, but I only get through two cups of water before I give up. My stomach is too full and I'm too tired, so I go directly to bed. The worst thing is to be tired and in bed but can't sleep, and I'm stuck in that limbo. All I want is to sleep, but I can't no matter how I try to clear my head. I guess that's my problem: it never clears fully.

Frustrated and irritable, I jump out of bed, pull on my clean hunting clothes, slid my bow and quiver over my shoulder, and grab my forage bag on the way out of the house. The woods have always been my place of peace. And if it gives me peace enough to sleep, then I'll sleep in the small house.

The time it takes to fill my bag with a pigeon and a squirrel, my muscles are worn and that weariness is back, so I head for the small house in the woods. I already picture which corner I'll curl into for a nap by the time it's in my sights, but what stops me is a slight movement through the window. It makes me shake my head and chuckle at myself because I'm so tired and on edge that even some raccoon or other critter can cause my guard to go up.

I get to the door and realize I should have been on guard because something thrusts in my direction and stops just inches from my chest. The weapon is nothing like I've seen before, a spear with a three-pronged tip. It's deadly, and I was only seconds away from learning first hand how deadly before it's wielder reconsidered for what ever reason.

The man with the weapon in his hands, eyes me with his magnificent sea green eyes carefully. A lock of bronze hair fall to the side of his face and makes him even more attractive than he was before, which I'm surprised that was even possible. There's a standoff between us as he tries to figure out whether or not to kill me, and as I don't move a muscle to encourage him to do it. The only thing to break it is a voice from a darker corner of the house. It's a gentle woman's voice. "It's her, Finnick."

"You're Katniss, Katniss Everdeen. The witch."

I'm not prepared for those words. For one, I've always associated the sound of the word "witch" for my mother and Prim. For another, to speak it so openly causes that ingrained fear to resurface, even when there's really no secret left. I swallow hard, nod my head and croak out, "Yes."

I can still see his sea green eyes working something in his mind as he stares at me, but the female figure slips up to his side and seems to decide for him when her hand gently rests atop one of his holding the spear. He lowers it for her, and the woman steps forward. I can see her brown hair and green eyes similar to his before she presses the draped cloth at her belly, revealing how large and round it is.

"I'm sorry. It's just that we've had to be careful in who we trust. Please, help us," she pleads with me. I'm not sure what to say because I'm not sure how I can help them.

The man's eyes soften considerably, and my breath almost catches in my throat because he looks like a little boy, so vulnerable. "We need your help," he adds to her plea. "My Annie's a witch. My mother was a witch." His hand reaches for Annie's belly. "If it's a girl, there's no doubt she'll be a witch, too. We need someplace safe to…"

He doesn't have to say anymore. It's very clear what he wants, but I'm not sure what he thinks I can do for them and tell them so.

"But you saved yourself and your family from the fire," Annie blurts out, and quickly after, her face turns a soft shade of pink.

"Our district is a war zone between the rebellion and the Capitol. It's not in ruins like District Three, but it's pretty bad," the man named Finnick says to me. "We fled, hoping to find a safe haven for witches here."

"District Twelve can't offer you that," I say, wishing I had better news. "We're waiting for retaliation from the Capitol."

Finnick shakes his head at that. "It'll be a while. The last thing we heard was that the rebellion's spread to District Two. It's a hit to their ranks, and they haven't been able to do much against the districts far beyond them."

Finally some good news. I can't believe that we will go unpunished, but perhaps we can prepare enough until then.

In a slightly better mood, I offer the couple a decent roof over their heads and lead them to my home. I offer Annie the bed I share with Prim because I'm sure Prim won't mind to learn that her bed keeps a very pregnant woman from having to sleep on a floor again. After they're settled, Annie's already snoring softly through the cracked bedroom door, I tell Finnick that I'm going into town, that someone's been shot, and I have to see if they are okay.

As best I can, I try to sound very casual about it, but Finnick has that vulnerable childlike look again and gives me a knowing smile before I leave.

Carrying my bow and arrows—I keep them on me at all times, now—I run from the Seam and into town. Sae stops me on her way to the Hob. There's a different look in her eyes, one that's similar to what I've seen from others in the district after the day we escaped the fires. It's a look of awe, but with Sae there's something else. I don't have time to figure it out but I don't have to because it's gone quickly as she eyes my bag. "Got anything interesting?" she asks, and I pull out the pigeon and hand it to her. I don't wait for her to say something before I'm already running down the road in the direction of the bakery. I don't want to waste the time trading. She'll owe me until we can work something out.

I get to the back steps behind the bakery and knock hard, hoping someone hears me. Peeta's older brother answers the door and smiles at me before saying so low that I know it's only meant for my ears. "Seems like I have an Everdeen in my corner, too."

He opens the door fully, and I'm about to sprint past him and up the stairs when I see Prim stitching Mrs. Mellark's forehead at the table. I turn my head away because I can't bare to see the blood and needle pulling through flesh, not even Mrs. Mellark's.

"The damnedest thing I've ever seen. That shelf in the storage room's been secure for years and then all of a sudden it collapses with my mother under it."

My mother and Mr. Mellark are talking, but my mother's eyes slip to me. It's a warning look, a reminder to be mindful of my focused thoughts. I nod with the hot rush of blood to my cheeks before I take to the stairs to Peeta's room.

He's still sleeping. They don't give him the Capitol version of sleep serum anymore, so he's been in and out of consciousness for the entire week. The times he wakes, he's disoriented, and it's also the time my mother and sister try to get as much water and food down him before he slips back into unconsciousness.

They say he'll live, but I can't seem to believe them when he's always like this. I hold his hand and wish that he'd wake up, really wake up. I start to cry when his hand squeezes back and blue eyes are trying to focus on me.

* * *

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	13. 13

It's been weeks since we've heard anything from the Capitol, but then again, they must be so busy with all twelve districts rebelling against them. Word from the other districts reaches us from time to time. Sometimes it's about their victories and sometimes it's about their defeats, but none of them have given up which bolsters us even as we know it's only a matter of time before the Capitol launches an assault with its superior weaponry and soldiers.

We're just waiting for the inevitable, but we all have our own ways of spending the last days of our lives. For merchants, it means opening their shops as they would any other day. For those in the Seam, it means spending time with family that they otherwise would never be able to do.

Peeta and I sit under the old apple tree behind the bakery each day. The pig pen stinks so bad, but this is the only place where we can find some privacy within the range he can walk with his recovering leg. Covered in leaves, the low hanging tree limbs shield us from the eyes we know would be on us otherwise. It's odd how his mother hates to see us together, but she watches our every move nonetheless.

I'm staring at the only bit of sky visible to us under the tree. There's a particularly fluffy white cloud traveling alone across the otherwise vast ocean of blue, the very same blue as his eyes. The thought warms me.

There's small snapping sounds just outside of my field of vision and I look beside me to see Peeta plucking flowers from the ground around us. He twirls one between his fingers and looks at me with a wide grin and a bunch of dandelions clustered in his other hand. I think of the dandelion drawing he gave me and it feels like it was ages ago with all that's happened in between. His eyes dart from the flower to me and back again until he's piqued my curiosity. "What is it?" I ask him, unable to keep the corners of my lips from turning upward. I shouldn't be smiling, but in these last days I feel more alive, more at peace than I have since my father was alive.

"I was wondering what they would look like in your hair," he says as though he's trying to picture it while saying the words. Dandelions in my hair? The thought itches at a corner of my mind as though it should mean something but I can't figure out what. I close my eyes concentrating on the thought to solve the mystery when I feel his fingers twining the stems into my hair, thinking that it was an invitation to do it. I don't stop him because his scent drifts into my nose as he leans closer to me, and the gentle caress of his fingers as they smooth out the strands around the stems makes my stomach flutter and my pulse quicken.

I open my eyes and his are all I can see, as blue as the sky. "Beautiful," I think in the same moment he says aloud just before his eyes dart down quickly to my lips before returning, and I lean forward just as he does until the warmth of his breath brushes against my face. There's a soft feathering of his lips against mine before he claims them as his own. He tastes like a future that I can't have, and I resent it. The feel of his lips against mine, his hands cradling my face gently, and his tentative tongue exploring the crease between my lips is what I want for the rest of my life, for however long that will be.

My arms slip over his shoulders to bring him even closer to me. I know there are many things we should discuss before the end comes, but all I want is to lose myself completely in his warmth until someone clears their throat close by. I expect to see Peeta's mother standing in front of us with her arms folded across her chest and her foot tapping as she's done before, but it's Prim holding two cups of water. Heat rushes up my neck and throughout my face and ears as Prim smiles down at us. She's been here at the Mellark bakery just as much as I have; it was agreed that she would come with me everyday to watch over his progress while our mother tends to those still recovering elsewhere in the district.

She hands us our drinks, and we thank her for her thoughtfulness, but I'm not sure she hears us because she's distracted by a conversation at the front of the bakery. At first, I can only pick up the voices of Finnick and Annie, which surprises me that the District Four couple is in town. Since we moved in a bed and fixed the leaky roof, they've called the small house in the woods their home. Finnick told us that although the lake isn't an ocean by any means, he's more comfortable near water regardless.

It's Gale, Madge, and Thom standing with them in some conversation. Prim rushes to them, greeting them with her sweet smile and they all seem happy to see her. I can't think of anyone that wouldn't be happy to see my little duck.

It's only then that I notice how close Madge and Gale stand together. How she touches his arm, and how his hand grazes her lower back on occasion.

I can't hear their conversation but I recognize the telltale signs that its winding down before they wave their goodbyes and start to leave. Prim says something to Thom before he walks too far away. He laughs and she beams. The look on Prim's face, in her eyes: she's smitten, and she's got it bad.

Thom says something to her and then raises his hand. I don't expect him to do what he does next, and I'm sure Prim didn't either. Gale's friend pats Prim on the top of her head, ruffling it just a little before walking away.

The joy in her eyes is snuffed out as quick, and her lower lip trembles. Her eyes meet mine for a second until all of the pain evident in her features disappears before she straightens her body and walks back into the bakery.

My pour little duck's first crush and my heart breaks for her even as I'm thankful for Thom's response. I think of the last ribbon game and Prim's ribbon hidden in the small house in the woods, the house once a haven for me and my father that is now called the Odair's.

I think about all of the events that have lead to these changes, and for me, the biggest one is sitting beside me. "Peeta…" I say as I turn to face him, but don't realize how close he is to me.

"Where were we?" he whispers softly with a gentle finger lifting my chin so that our lips are level. He doesn't hesitate to capture each of my lips between his, savoring the taste of them before moving on to the corner of my mouth, down my chin, along the length of my exposed throat.

He's just reached my collarbone when the warning sirens blare from the barracks and any relaxation my muscles enjoyed is gone. We break apart quickly and stare in that direction. Finnick and Annie are farther down the road. She points to something in the west, covers her mouth and buries her face in Finnick's chest.

Other people gather in the main road, even Peeta's family and Prim, and eventually everyone is staring in the same direction.

Peeta and I can't see what they see because of the apple tree and the bakery, so we have to move. I stand, grab my bow and quiver full of arrows before shifting them to help Peeta to his feet. To steady him, I hand him his walking stick before we make our way around the bakery and to the main road.

There, far in the western horizon are bright shapes, and there's no doubt that they are metal reflecting the sunlight. Airships. We've only seen them on the screen, transporting important people from the Capitol. There are three of them headed our way and somehow I don't think its transporting anyone important. I imagine that each one is filled with soldiers ready to kill us all in the single mission to take back our district.

I'm not the only one to come to this conclusion. There are several of those around me who are armed with guns and are readying for a fight. "There coming!" a merchant woman cries out in fear.

My grip tightens on my bow, and Peeta slips his hand in my free hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. His eyes are focused on mine and they tell me everything that there isn't anymore time to say.

There's an explosion at the far boundary of the district where the road and rails lead out of our district to the inner districts which snaps our focus from each other. From our vantage point on the main road, we can see in the distance a fireball mushroom out and seconds later the ground beneath us rumbles. It's not enough to unbalance but definitely enough to rattle nerves. What's left when the smoke clears is blackened rubble and mangled metal. High above, the three airships continue forward towards us, shiny and reflecting the sunlight off of their polished metal. They're blinding to look at directly, but I squint to face our doom down to our last moments.

Around us, some whimper, some cry out and even wail, but all voices rise in panic. Everyone assumed that the Capitol would send soldiers to fight, but it's clear that they have no intention of fighting. What they want is to wipe us off of the map of Panem.

From deep within the crowd, a voice rises above all others and the cadence I'd recognize anywhere. It's a chant, but it's not a voice I would expect to hear chanting.

Sae steps away from the crowd and towards me, her voice strong and vibrant, contrasting with her old, frail body. I also recognize the chant; it's the one Prim began when we were tied to the posts. I don't understand what the words mean, but Prim explained to me that it's to focus the energy of all witches involved into one witch. There's a moment when I wonder who Sae intends to imbue with her energy, but the pair of old, gray eyes are on me so there really isn't a question.

Her granddaughter's standing beside her, and blinks at her grandmother a few times before a smile spreads across her face. She joins her voice, and the combined sound is steady and its rhythm hums in the air against the growing vibration of the airships hovering over the ground and coming closer. There's another voice that adds itself to the chant, my mother's. I didn't see her come into town, but I know her voice. She appears beside Sae's granddaughter, taking her hand in hers with one and then Sae's free hand with her other, effectively creating a witches' circle around me. The three of them are standing together with their hands clasped and their heads held to the sky, howling their ancient words. Prim inserts herself between our mother and Sae, adding her voice to theirs.

I look up to see the once clear sky fill with large clouds that gather into clusters, each one darkening as they do so. I hear a very loud argument between Lissa Runer and her sister, Fran, that only lasts for a few moments before Fran kisses her husband and pulls her sister and mother to the circle. They insert themselves between Sae and Prim. Lissa is the last to join, hesitant to take their hands until her sister gives her a stern look. Once that's settled, Fran dives in, at first listening intently to the sounds and rhythm until she's comfortable enough to mimic the sounds of the long dead language. Her mother, a frail woman who I've only seen twice in my life—one of those times was at Fran's toasting—clasps her hand with her daughters and joins her voice with a steady ease.

Lissa's mouth, however, stays shut for the longest. Her eyes dart from one face to another within the surrounding crowd nervously. It felt like all of District Twelve had already gathered after the sirens, but now the district's focus is on the witches' circle. It's when her eyes look to the sky, to the ships in the sky that is our certain death, she joins her voice. It's weak against the others, but it can just still be heard.

I never knew the Runers were witches. But then again, so many witch families went into hiding over the years, the last of them especially after Maysilee's death.

The sky above is now covered in a light shade of gray, rolling and churning into itself. Annie kisses her husband who doesn't let her go easily, but she whispers something in his ear and their eyes drop down to her very round stomach. He lets her go after that, and she joins the chorus of chants, taking Lissa's hand in hers. Madge is the last to rush in, trying the words in her mouth until she's confident to raise her voice with them. Unlike the rest, Madge doesn't look towards the sky. Her eyes are fixed on me, and I understand what they tell me. In the span of both our lives, we've never seen so many witches gathered together before. This is why she did everything that she did, that what she really wanted in the end was to be able to claim her birthright freely, and this was her moment.

The gray clouds darken and churn above us even as we start to not only hear but feel the rumbling hum of the ships in the air coming towards us. Heat spreads all along my body, a burn that starts at the soles of my feet and rips through me, radiating outward. I can barely focus on anything around me, but in the crowd surrounding us I strain to find Peeta who I'd lost when they encircled me. He's standing with his brothers and Delly, and his head barely dips down, almost unnoticeable, but I notice. He's with me. Even as far apart as we are, I can feel his warmth along my skin. His support bolsters my courage as the energy from the ground seeps into me. It's stronger than I've ever felt it before, and I'm afraid that it will consume me.

Nine witches have created a circle around me, pooling their magick with me as their focus. The ideal would be thirteen, a full coven, for maximum power while still being able to maintain control, but there's no way that we'll ever be able to achieve that. There simply aren't enough witches in the district unless there are even more hidden. After the last few minutes, I can't say it's out of the question. Still, I don't even think there were that many witches before the death of Maysilee, so I doubt there is now.

Their chants grow louder and my head starts pounding. I close my eyes tightly to shut out voices but thunder rumbles along with them, starting inside the ever darkening clouds. I open my eyes just in time to see a spark of lightning. The thunder rumbles in time with the chants. It's a part of us. I know those encircling me feel it too. Some are swaying, some are trembling, but anyone can see that each one of them feels what I feel: the electricity in the air that's making the hair all over my body stand on end. Even Lissa feels this power surging through all of us. I can see it in the way she shouts at the sky as though expecting it to crack open for us.

By the look of the sky, it may very well do it. The gray is almost black, now, and the clouds churn within themselves restlessly. I see the airships very clearly without the sunlight to reflect off of them, but they are still drawing closer, ready to drop their bombs and kill us all. With only ten witches total, there's no hope for us to reach the power we'd need to defend ourselves against them.

I close my eyes again and wait for the inevitable until I hear another voice just outside of the circle. I open my eyes to see a woman I haven't seen in years, but as I watch her approach, I simultaneously see the younger, happier version of her. Mrs. Undersee continues to walk towards us, her eyes clear and focused for once. She inserts herself between Madge and my mother, who both stare and almost falter in their chants. The woman gives my mother a friendly smile and she returns one so that I don't think I've ever seen. The smile Mrs. Undersee gives to her daughter, however, is wide, and her eyes brim with unshed tears. Madge beams with bright eyes and allows her tears to fall freely.

The woman feels familiar to me, and I feel a sense of completion to see her, to see her well. I look up above me and see the clouds are violent, complete with explosions of lightning that flicker inside them like fireworks. The air around us is thick and I feel little pinpricks along the entire surface of my skin.

"Katniss!" Prim calls out to me, and of its own volition, my arms bring my bow into position, readying an arrow. I'm not sure what I can do with a simple arrow, but I give in to what's happening to me. That much I've learned about magick. As I've always done in the woods beyond the fence, I close my eyes and allow my instincts to decide my target, taking in one long breath before my fingers release of their own accord.

There's a discharge of the energy that pooled inside the circle at the moment the arrow released, and it pushes us all to the ground where we can only watch the arrow soar high into the sky. It keeps going, higher than I've ever flown an arrow before, until it disappears inside the closest coal dust gray cloud to flash with light. There's an immediate reaction, and then another, chaining through the clouds one by one. The flashing lights have become full-fledged lightning streaking across the sky.

It's constant. It's everywhere, creating a web in the sky. The first airship to enter it is struck hard, catching fire before it explodes into tiny piece of confetti drifting down to the ground somewhere over the edge of the district. The remnants of that ship crash into the second, hollowing out a chunk that sends it crashing to the ground, delaying its explosion for impact deep in the woods.

Their last airship tried to turn, veering to the right, only to turn into one of the large clumps of clouds. It disappeared, and the last we see of it is the biggest brightest light inside the cloud yet.

The energy we pooled together has been used up, and I feel my body ache and my head spin. My vision narrows into a small circle with Peeta's frantic expression is at the center of it until I lose consciousness completely.

* * *

**Epilogue**

It's spring, and with it comes the spring celebration. I work with Annie, Madge, Lissa, and Fran to make sure all of the herbs are in place for the ritual later that night.

On a dais built for these occasions, my mother sits with Sae at one side of her, and Madge's mother at her other in their honored places as elders. That look of peace on my mother's face hasn't left her since Liberation Day, the day we successfully defended ourselves from the Capitol.

The meadow is packed with people, Seam and those from town, more than I've ever seen for a spring celebration but I might have dreamt it once.

Everyone's filled with excitement because it's the ribbon game. Two golden haired girls wind their way through the crowd, dispensing the ribbons in their hands in turn. Each movement of one is in time with the other and it, too, reminds me of a dream.

I take the time to watch them as I rub my protruding belly. It's heavy, very heavy and I feel like I'm ready to pop.

"They are such a handful," Annie chuckles to me before returning to the herbs, and I smile at that. My eyes rove the crowd until they find what I've been looking for. Peeta stands with his older brother, his sister-in-law, Delly, and Finnick, all watching the ribbons handed out. He tilts his head to the side as though something catches his attention and slowly turns to look in my direction. He finds me immediately and mouths something that I would never be able to hear in this din but I don't need to hear it to know what he's saying.

"I love you," he mouths to me, and I form the words soundlessly back to him before he returns to watching the game.

Maggie holds the last ribbon in her hand, but doesn't give it to anyone. Instead, without seeing she waits for Lily to join her, and they both hand it to a very shocked boy who can't be more than thirteen. A groups of girls around the same age giggle hysterically.

With the game done, Maggie snatches the blindfold off and rushes into her fathers arms, not slowing down momentum. Finnick's arms are already spread wide to catch her. Lily, however, doesn't run because that's not her temperament. She stands at her father's side and leans into him to give him a chance to balance enough to pick her up. Peeta's leg healed, but it's never been the same.

In Peeta's arms, Lily wraps her arms around his neck and nuzzles in. He whispers something to her, and she loosens her grip just enough to nod before returning her tight hold on him and burying her head in his shoulder. She only lifts her head again to see Maggie, smiling widely at each other in their fathers' arms while reaching to join hands.

It's been this way between them since the day Lily was born over six years ago. Maggie cried when Annie tried to take her away from the newborn. Sae and my mother say that it's because they were the twelfth and thirteenth witches that day when the airships came, the spell bound them in a way that we will never really understand.

The music starts and Prim, as this year's Spring Daughter, stands from her swing to join, but she hesitates when someone approaches her. It's Thom. His hand offered out to her and she shyly takes it. Only now do I notice the ribbon twined in her hair, the ribbon Delly gave her years ago. The same ribbon Prim handed to Thom during the ribbon game that same year.

I watch her dance with Thom. I watch Maggie and Lily dance together with bright, carefree smiles as their fathers watch them with proud smiles of their own.

My mother, my sister, and I are witches, from a long line of witches that rose from the days before Panem. We've always lived in fear, but now that Panem is no more, my children will never experience that fear.

* * *

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